Battlesong
by NegativeSpaces
Summary: 912 AD. The great North is a dangerous place. Santana, a priestess native to the plains of Iberia, is forced from her home to take refuge in foreign lands. There, she finds a viking girl determined to prove herself, and a love she never knew she had. Brittana.
1. Chapter 1

[A/N: Why hello again, gentle readers. This is my first crack at a historical AU. I've been researching the hell out of vikings and their ways/customs/words, but it's entirely plausible I'll get something wrong. If so, I apologize in advance.

Most of these places are in existence/used to be, such as Kaupang. I'll explain the various names at the bottom of each chapter. Great thanks to my beta, **Laugh-till-it-hurts**_, _for looking over this train wreck and making sure my sentences actually have form. Nothing of this belongs to me - I'm simply here to give you what you want. Enjoy!]

**Chapter 1**

**ever close your eyes, ever stop and listen**

**ever feel alive, and you've nothing missing**

** March 28th, 912**

Grandfather had tried with the patience of an old glacier to teach her the trick, but angry fingers knead and tug on tense muscles with the same impatience that had caused him to sigh. Twinges of pain shoot up through ankles to hips, frustrating the girl and causing a familiar furrowing a fair brow even as a small grunt escapes pale lips. Undaunted, she digs deeper, searching for the elusive knot that's paralyzed the rotating joint of her hip to a sullen stiffness. Teeth bared, her nails sink into porcelain flesh, curling under fine musculature and firm bones. "Pain is weakness leaving the body," she grunts between clenched teeth, uttering her mantra again and again until with an almighty jolt, pain radiates through every limb, sending a flush and tingle through pale, snow coloured flesh. _Child of Winter_, Grandfather had called her, fair as the new snow. Child of Winter, who reddened and blistered at even the caress of summer. Her questing fingers twitch and convulse, and she can't help but let out a pained gasp. Strikingly blue eyes shut to the world, tension shown in the firm curl of a slender jaw as any more sounds are swallowed harshly.

After a moment of suffocating silence, the pain recedes and allows the figure to worm her fingers deeper, probing cautiously, ever wary of an unexpected repeat. Sun paints warm on her shoulders, but she pays it no heed, back hunching slightly as she smooths away the discomfort and takes solace from the strength of the wood behind her form. Fingers brush through countless battle-scars, a canvas of white strokes upon a creamy canvas. They each tell of a story; triumph and defeat that loop in never ending wars, the tally only rising higher the older the others grow.

The creak of a heavy door and fingertips catch under the bone in surprise, seizing the muscle from the root of pale toes. A mighty flinch shudders down the length of her body as yet another groan escapes into the stillness, louder this time.

"Bretagne?" A disembodied voice murmurs, footsteps soft against the floor. Oceanic eyes flit upwards, a sheepish grin sloughing off her face when a sharp bite against the top of her foot reminds her of more pressing matters. "_Kveðja_, Mikhail. I'm fine, honestly. Simply bonding with the wood here." Yet she curls into a loose ball upon her side, trying to massage away the current of pain brought upon by a mishap with a crude staff and angry villager.

Another face swims into view - despite less sun that his native East, the North had been good to Mikhail. His soft raven hair floats around his oddly slanted eyes, a slave's collar resting gently against his slim neck. They had been unable to decipher his name and instead given him a new one (Bjorn had insisted upon Mikhail, his ascent into Christianity a cause of tension for his comrades) that was carved into the simple metal tag threaded into the leather.

She had always liked him. His quietly spoken ways and endless determination made sure that everybody else liked him, too. He was given small things here and there to remind him of appreciation.

"It seems that it must rather like you, hm?" His gaze cuts down to the spasming muscles in her leg. His flat features are painted with bold sympathy.

"Of course. It wishes to take my hand in marriage."

She grins through gritted teeth and nods slightly when he gestures to take her limb, hesitating out of respect. Skilled hands begin to soothe the anger from her skin, light on dark and chilled from the outside. Her nails sink into the grains of the floorboards.

They had always been not so secret friends. Though she was of noble blood, daughter of a fierce warrior, it held no consequence in her heart from where Mikhail came from. He was seven when the ships brought him in, bound in irons and chains, body willowy from weeks with little to eat. The sailors laughed when he stumbled, tangled in his own restraints.

"Father," she had mumbled, eyes never leaving the exotic boy. "I want that one." He swung his gaze to her own, and fiery brows furrowed into a deep forehead.

"It's but a child, _dyerbar_."

"And so am I." She responded. He could see the set to her face, stubborn and unwavering. Her stare unnerved him in the strangest ways. "That was how you found me, right?"

She'd already won before the argument had even started.

With a sigh he had strode up to the sailors disembarking, new dents to mar their iron helmets with the shine tarnished and worn. They were boisterous, heavy flush to their cheeks, obviously drunk after a successful raid. One noticed the imposing man narrowing in on their position and raised his arm in salute.

"Betar!" He roared, ignoring the other men that snapped and prodded the slaves up to solid ground. Winter had not yet sunk its teeth into the land, but the air carried with it the chill of the grave. "Long time no see, my friend! It's been what, months? Too long, too long." He took another swing of his wooden cup, blissfully unaware of the way the taller man rolled his eyes.

"Not nearly long enough," he muttered, but simply rose his chin high and offered a similar greeting. He asked of the chase and the fight, half-listening to the drunken revelries of coastal towns that ran away in fright.

His daughter gestured impatiently from the corner of his eye; he sighed again, smirking internally at how he was already wrapped around fingers that would grow lithe and nimble in her adolescence. "I see you've brought some slaves from your raids, Bjorn." A grin greeted him, broad arm sweeping out in a clumsy motion that nearly knocked a frail woman from her feet. The clatter of chains was deafening around the docks. "I've come to offer for one."

"Of course! Take your pick! First choice for you, my friend."

His beard burned in the autumn sun as he strode to where he last saw the tiny boy. Copper hair pulled tightly into an intricate braid, he watched the foreigner eye him warily the closer he got, until he was towering over him. Yet his breath didn't smell like mead and his gaze was calm; chocolate eyes glanced up into muddled green even as his mouth opened to cascade him in the harsh, guttural tongue that had no hold in his head.

"Betar." Said the man, pointing to himself. "Bjorn." He followed his finger to the angry one that ranted with a cross above his head in the dead of night. "Bretagne." This time, a small girl about his age with hair of spun gold. She grinned and he gave a timid smile in return. The large man then gestured to him, fine tunic whispering across his skin.

_"Chang Ming." _He said, but a moment later the preacher (Bjorn, his mind supplied) gave an almighty shout and stumbled forward. Annoyance was plastered along the lines of his face and a rawhide whip was gripped in one hand. Ming recoiled, but the lash was already felt along his back; he fell in a sprawling heap at Betar's feet.

"Infidel!" He foamed, rearing up to strike again. "I told you, your name is Mikhail! You're not to sully this place with your tongue!" Out of the corner of his eye, there was a flash of blonde, but it was too quick before his hand descended for another strike. It hit solidly, a high pitched noise of pain emitting from the figure in front of him. Yet, instead of lashing the small boy, a little girl lay in a mess of dresses. A red stripe had already begun to bloom from her collarbone, disappearing out of sight under the safety of her clothing.

In a moment that appeared effortless, the song of a sword being unsheathed rang out impossibly loud coupled with a garbled noise of pain; blood splattered against the decks even as Ming squeezed his eyes shut. The girl who had taken his blow was draped over top of his thin body, but her presence was oddly comforting amidst the shouting that had begun to take place. He barely registered the angry roar (and never had he heard anything more terrifying save for the scream of the flames that devoured his village) of her father's revenge. No, just the stirring of her breath along his ear that brushed the ebony hair from his skin.

He was _Mikhail_ now.

Hands questing along her calf stall, and she realizes that she had said his name aloud. Bright eyes blink back the haze, and she grins again, scintillating and without hesitance. He responds in kind, noting how her musculature has stopped twitching under his fingers.

"Better?" Sun pours into the small room; it warms her shoulders and makes her body itch for movement. "Always." She can't recall how many times he's worked out the kinks from battle, palms pushing away the knots and fire from her bones. Once, he'd even come at her with needles, prodding in strange spots based on an art that another Oriental had shown him. She tingled for days and forbid him from approaching her with those ever again.

"Your father wishes to see you."

The blonde springs up from her seated position, testing the weight on her feet and stretching out wide. Her simple linen sleep-garb rides high on her stomach, and Mikhail modestly averts his gaze. She smirks at the blush she knows burns on his tanned cheeks, lingering eyes despite his own wishes. Her hair is wrapped into a high ponytail with a thin strip of deer hide. The ends brush the shallow dip of her spine, cracking the bones as she goes on the hunt for a pair of shoes.

"In attendance?"

The taller boy follows her progress, dipping under the bed and over the dresser. He smiles fondly when she pouts, eyes casting about the room to wherever she might have put her slippers.

"Your father, Sveinn Geirsson of Uppsala, Lundvar Sturlsson of Birka, their sons; Kalfi, Ulfvarr and Hringr. Many of their liegemen are there, too, taking rest from days of sailing. It is early, but I suspect they have already begun to drink." She sighs and rolls her eyes at the mention. Not that she's expecting anything other, but it would be pleasant to go through a day without having to fight with her words. Sometimes they tangle in her brain, rendering her mute to unwelcome advances that are then warded away with twice the ferocity.

"Is this another ridiculous scheme to find me a husband?" Comes a grumble from the far side of the small cabin. A moment later, a sound of triumph floats out as a pale hand sticks high into the air with a pair of shoes firmly clenched within her grasp.

"I wouldn't say ridiculous," muses Mikhail, still lotus positioned on the floor, "but most definitely a scheme." For a moment, his friend's eyes gather coming storms, drawing a glaze over her vision. She is like playing with the vicious ocean waves; unpredictable and deadly in all the worst ways.

The laces are tugged harder than necessary, fingers flying as she knots them tight around her quelled ankles. She thrums with nervous energy, a reflection of the clouds slowly roiling on the distant horizon. "I suppose I have little choice," she grumbles, flinging open the door and squinting into the bright sunlight.

"Try not to be so glum, Bretagne!" He responds, rising easily to fall into step beside her. "Perhaps you will find a suitable mate that can sustain your voracious appetite for adventure?"

She simply glares.

~.~.~.~.~

Despite her professed grumblings, she cannot be angered as she steps out into the cooled spring air. She loves the North; everything about it sings to her. The mountains rumble under her feet, and the wind whispers in her hair while the trees bow on skeletal limbs to her passing. She feels her borrowed blood rush readily through her veins, like seeking some great goal. Her lips turn bright red; blushing rose petals lacquered with slowly melting frost.

She adjusts her belt that holds up her simple woollen trousers and brings in her bright blue tunic as a rude gesture to the men she'll no doubt have to meet. Refusing to constrain herself to pretty dresses and apron-smocks, states something far stronger than she'll ever be able to say. (But then again, her thoughts are always best said in the simplest of actions.) From a distance she can see the seamen's mighty ships rearing out from the water with the bows hoisting beautiful maidens as figureheads, guarding all within the ship from harm. Her body longs for the ocean, the ebb and flow under her feet as solid as the earth's heartbeat, as calming as any lullaby.

Kaupang sits upon the rim of the sea, a bustling trader's town away from the border of Sweden. Though her father's estate is large, she holds a small house of her own upon a cliff top, merely a few hundred paces from the main building but still her own. All the movement from within keeps her awake long after the sun has descended - the blonde much prefers the lapping of the water's tongue along the face of its lover. Mikhail is silent as the grass is trodden underfoot; he doesn't even notice the soft tap of his metal tag touching the hollow of his throat. It's grown almost into him now, the time where he was free is hazy at best.

The closer they get, the louder the boisterous sounds of laughter become. They squint together against the rising sun in an attempt to form an outline for the degree of stupidity they are about to find within the solid walls. She loves her father, she really does, but she'll fight to Valhalla to show him that she does not want, nor require a husband.

She's a good a warrior as any of his finest men.

The two adolescents walk in together, the oriental hanging back respectfully with his head slightly bowed. Drunken jabs are thrown, but he's learned to let them slide off his back like the finest oil - they won't even remember their own names come next morn. He follows his friend's sure steps, the slide of her feet upon the polished flooring silent but carrying an undercurrent of dangerous power.

He feels it when she's around. All the time. Like a river of something _else_, strong and devastating flowing secretly through her body that not even she notices. She dams it with a carefree personality and vacant smiles, but when her knuckles turn white on the hilt of a spear it all comes gushing out in a spectacular display of gore and death. He hopes with all his heart he'll never be on the end of her wrath, for he surely knows he'd never make it out intact.

It's like magic - but Mikhail has witnessed magic, it's tricky and filthy and altogether wrong - but hardened, more direct. It shines in her eyes as she straightens her spine and gives a beaming smile to her father.

Betar Silver-Spear is an imposing man; all rippling muscle and bones in the right places with a glare as sharp as steel. A halo of braided crimson hair sits atop his head with a beard of similar design, feathers and beads woven into intricate patterns. Eyes of convoluted green watch the crowd, lighting up when he spies his only daughter. "Bretagne!" He rumbles happily, a tired smile slipping over his lips as he catches sight of what she's currently wearing. "How nice of you to join us, _dóttir_." She leans her face into his outstretched paw, nuzzling the rough and worn skin she feels against the silk of her cheek.

"Of course. Who am I to deny such wonderful guests?" The current of annoyed amusement is laced within the syllables as she surveys the drunken rabble. Her head throbs at the mere thought of attempting to drink so soon after waking. Betar sighs, running a large thumb along the braided rawhide circlet that rests upon her brow. "Give them a chance, yes? Some of them might surprise you."

"I'm but seventeen, father. I have no need to settle down and find a suitable _husband_ quite yet."

This was the rising of a familiar argument, born of differing views. She is his only child, necessary to pass down the line. The moment Betar had taken her into his arms, he vowed she would become a better warrior than any son. Giving her the last name of Piersson ensured none would be confused from whence she came. Yet she still had to be the fastest, nimblest, most cunning in order to receive a fraction of the attention that she deserved.

(And usually, it wasn't even the attention that she desired.)

He opens his mouth to reply but is cut off with a roar of laughter from another source. It stems from a stocky man with brow set like a bull, ruddy hue to his cheeks betraying how many drinks he'd consumed. Sveinn, she assumes, the almost white-blond of his hair blinding against his deep green tunic. He's not as tall as her father, but his girth more than makes up for his stunted height.

"An' I tell ya," he slurs, cup sloshing over onto his meaty fist. "They's be getting too comfortable ups on tha' mainland. Too comfortable, I say! They push thar boats out so far, almost beggin' us ta go in an' _plunder!_" Another thunderous howl comes up from the table, steadying him with hoots of glee as he sways on his feet.

She's obviously entered during the midst of a raving, but the mention of plunder pricks her ears.

"Where would this mainland be?" She asks curiously, pleasantly surprised when he simply peers at her for a moment before replying as he would to anybody else.

"Up in the fjord of Aarhus," says the man, attempting to straighten up but failing miserably. "They get themselves quite a goo' supply o' _things_, my girl. Silver, salt, sluts." He pauses in muddled confusion before an insincere smile breaks across his face. "Oops. Sorry 'bout tha', jus' seemed to... slip out." He doubles over and even she cracks a grin at the crude joke. Living in constant competition to men had dulled her (and perhaps sharpened) to their words.

His voice trails off as he begins spinning an excited, warbling tale, but the blonde's mind is firmly rooted on thoughts of a raid. She itches to feel her spear underneath her fingers, anchoring her down to the waking world lest she float away to the outer branches of Yggdrasil.

It's not like she enjoys taking a life. In fact, she hates it - to see the light drain from another's eyes is something that will never escape her memories. It's the rush of the fight that calls her akin to a siren's song; the clash of metal upon her shield, the pained grunts from her fallen adversaries as she strikes them down. It reminds her all too closely of dancing - something she wasn't allowed to learn except for in the secrecy of her room with Mikhail, for great warriors do not dance, they fight.

Mikhail watches knowingly from his corner of the room as she stills, absently twirling the gold necklace around her throat as her mind spins silvery fine webs to snare an idea. Her brain works differently - some would call her slow, but the tongue lashing they receive in the end shows it speeds along just fine - as she chases down the tunnels of her consciousness, brow creasing to stare holes in the scuffed floorboards. Light is just dawning in her eyes, baby-bone fragile and so easily displaced, when a boy about her age stumbles forth. He's red from the tips of his hair to the spread of his collar, tall and gangly with a shock of cropped black hair. His tunic hangs oddly on his frame - he's doomed from the start when his flailing shatters her precious concentration and condemns her ideals to the back of her head.

"Bretagne?" He asks, like he's unsure of her name. She glances up with a scowl, face quickly schooling itself into vacancy that Mikhail recognizes all too well.

"Yes?" She replies, voice deceptively light. Behind him, his brothers holler obscenities. Her eyes flash a dangerous warning that goes unheeded or ignored.

"I, um, I'm Finngeirr, son of Klintir. Well, I was, until he died. Which was a long time ago." The words that tumble out of his mouth are unorganized at best, confusing the both of them. "Anyway, I wondered if you want a drink? The mead is pretty good here."

They had all heard of the shield-maiden that refused to be tamed, with skin of snow but voice schooled to thunder. She had touched tongues with many a man - curiosity refused to settle until it was sated - but desired none. They all wondered if they were to be the first only to be sorely disappointed.

She peers at him closely, feline eyes narrowing once before cutting to her darker friend in something he believes is amusement. In a tall, awkward way she supposes Finngeirr is somewhat attractive with his fine colours and polished sword. She admires the ornate handle for a moment but shakes her head, dislodging the cobwebs that had again begun to spin their nest around her mind. In doing so, the previous train of thought she had lost is regained, and a sudden light floods her face.

"I appreciate the offer, son of Klingr, but I'm afraid I have more pressing matters on my hands." His face flushes crimson as she quickly crosses to where Sveinn still stands, jumping up on the table and snatching a tankard from an unsuspecting Northman. Standing up high, she gulps when she can meet the eyes of all the men attending. Their stares shoot jittering nerves throughout her being. Her mouth opens but no sound slips forth. The sniggers of the boys her age are horribly loud in her ears, and she fights away the rush of shame that's all too common.

From his seat, her father gives an encouraging smile with worry only beginning to eat away at the very edges of his face. Now that she has brought the attention upon herself, it would look foolish for them both if he were to rescue her. He had not given her the surname of Piersson for no reason.

Again she tries, collar warm - she takes a large swallow of the mead to calm herself. It is sticky on her tongue and fingers, fuzzy in the best of ways as she fights back an impulsive grimace.

"Sveinn the Bold spoke of a fjord tucked away in the northern peak of Denmark, where a port has forgotten whom they should be afraid of." Her voice begins as faltering but grows in strength, carrying clear and true despite the inherit airy tones, snagging the attention of all Nords that took up feasting in the hall. "Should we not remind them? Should we not tell them that it is _us,_ seamen of Norway, warriors of Kaupang, that they must fear?"

Another gulp. This time, it is a welcome heat that pools in her chest.

"You've just come from a raid, but since when do we turn down opportunity for another? I've heard the Christians might soon come to take Denmark as their own if we do not leave our mark upon the land." She swallows the shiver in her voice. "Odinn himself would piss on you if you let them take what is _ours_!"

Rumbles of assent have begun to roll across the room in time to the rhythmic stomping of her feet accentuating her points. The flood of battle has already begun to seep into her veins - she feels wild, powerful; not even a valkyrie could carry her off to the unknown.

At this point Sveinn begins to understand what she's getting at, climbing up to flank her and carry her voice where it may fall. His timbre is strong, easily drowning out hers even as one large hand clutches her shoulder for support. Some boys look like they would protest, but seeing the respected warrior take the girl's side silences them.

She's glad for the aid - speaking in front of a crowd always ties her tongue and stains her fair skin an unfavourable shade of crimson.

"The girl is right! Why do they not fear us? Do they believe because we are neighbours, we will stay our hands?" he sways and she is quick to clasp him by the back of his neck. "I say we sail to Aarhus upon the light of morn; to take their people, their belongings, and their honour!"

This time a great din of approval reaches out to meet them, arms spread wide like unfurling wings. Finngeirr stands with a befuddled expression upon his jowls and along his brow, but he's lost amongst the cheering crowd. She grins (and she looks like a goddess, gleaming and thrumming and so very _alive_) and hops down from the bench, draining the rest of her tankard and slamming it down with a mighty belch. Away from prying eyes she lets herself uncoil, straightening higher and paling again. Her father places heavy hands upon her shoulders, face tight with paternal pride.

"Go dress and fetch your weapons, Bretagne." Says the warrior, voice low and strong. "We set sail at first light."

Her muscles flex in anticipation, waving Mikhail along with untempered glee.

_Battle._

[A/N: Bretagne: Dutch variant of Brittany, her native tongue.

_Kveðja: _An Old Norse greeting.

Shield-maiden: A woman who has decided to take up the trial of men and become a warrior. They must often fight to prove themselves, having to go above and beyond expectations to be able to place with even an ounce of respect.

Piersson: The whole reason this is so strange is because Piersson literally means _son of Pierce. _However, considering that Brittany is female, giving her this name is in direct conflict with their society. Luckily for them both, Pierce is a form of Peter. Betar is _also_ a form of Peter, so her last name still makes sense in the scheme of things.

So that was the first chapter. I'm sorry if Brittany doesn't sound very Brittany-ish at the moment, but there's only a certain amount of tripping over words she can do while trying to rouse a mead hall into a frenzy. She's going to be a bit firmer spoken than common thought considering how she was raised - but still the one we know and love. Reviews are fantastic and greatly appreciated to let me know how it's done. Next up: meeting Santana!]


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Hello again! I have to say, I'm so pleased by all the positive news I've been getting towards this story. It makes writing it all that much sweeter. You guys are pretty bad at guessing, though - I gave it away in the summary what Santana was going to be!

I know there's currently a lot of translation going on and I'm sorry for that, but as Santana learns more and more of the language you'll see there's less needing to be translated, until you can read it without interruptions. I speak no Nordic tongues or Welsh, so it was me and the good old translators. I'm using Icelandic in place of Norwegian, because that early on they would have used Old Norse, which is closer in wording and structure to Icelandic than what they're supposed to be speaking. Just struggle it out with me for the first few chapters, okay? It'll be worth it.

* * *

><p>Chapter 2<p>

Santana loathes the North. The sun shining down upon her cloak gives her no comfort. She's far from her small town in native Iberia, and everything about this place is wrong. Why would anybody live where the sea is so very cold?

Her eyes flick from the squat houses lining the dirty streets. Beyond this is nothing but the coast where men toil inside their boats for the fish that swim listlessly within the northern waters, flash of their scales luring many a foolish child to a watery death. She has never seen the strange constructions that are presented to her now - the buildings are low and lurking, stretching out for countless paces and made of sturdy salt-stained wood. Santana has only passed one church and seen no crosses pressing against the chests of the villagers.

A blessing in disguise, surely. It would be a shame to run so far just be caught without chance of defence.

She receives many odd glances as she makes her way through the town. In a sea of pale skins, her caramel complexion melds badly with the population. Some hook their fingers into the three clawed ward-evil sign as she passes, but others dip their heads in acknowledgement upon seeing the inverted arch painted against her forehead in red ochre, lined with three teardrops that rest beneath the bold line. It's encouraging - running from Iberia, she was shunned almost everywhere she roamed. Charcoal eyes blink back the faint sting of the ocean breeze as she continues onwards, ashen staff tapping along the ground. Her left hand curls around it solidly; holding the rawhide grip perhaps harder than necessary; hawk feathers and precious stones sway from the string that dangles down from the knotted top.

It's one of the many gifts from her mother. She longs so desperately for their little home along the edges of the trees that her whole body aches from it.

The chatter of their language lulls her into a diminished sense of awareness. She takes in the unimpressive buildings that were so different than the splendid towers and castles that accosted her whenever she would make her way into Jaca for supplies or work. The locals would smile and bow at her mother, murmuring words of praise, ever thankful as she'd touch their skin and whisper threads of blessing in return. Christianity and Islam were in a violent struggle against each other, but they were allowed unhindered passage. Too many times had they cured a fever that no priest was able to quell, or given protection to wandering pilgrims that accepted their spells with grateful appreciation. Her mother spun the oldest magic that was rooted in her very soul. It spilled out of her like a cup that was too full - on more than one occasion Santana swore she saw a gentle, white glow surrounding her in the dead of night.

Paganism (the old ways, her mother used to call it, untainted by human ideal or greed) was looked down upon in Iberia, but they never strayed or ever became ashamed of who they were. Their little village of Botaya cherished them so, hiding them away when the missionaries came to hassle the people. Santana would watch from the slats in the ways that they passed by in blindingly white robes; not the soothing calm of her mother's presence, no, this white was blank and unfeeling. They preached of love and patience, but she heard the whimpers in the night from the victims of the soldiers of wandering hands (and tongues). It sparked a hatred in her that ha festered and grew the older she became, tainting her own magic with tendrils of fury.

She was always admonished for that. Energy must be harnessed and used for good endeavours, lest karma come and strike you down ten-fold. So, grudgingly, she'd push it down and lock it away, almost forgetting until she saw yet another cross press against the breastbone of those who scoffed at the marks upon her forehead. A simple spiral, lovingly painted in sticky ochre each morning sealed by a kiss and a whispered greeting. It represented the power she was still coming into, lapping outwards in constant waves that battered the insides of her skin. It looked natural against her light mocha complexion.

Her feet ache as she travels further into the small town, dodging past the aurochs whom trundle down the dirt path led by sturdy farmers. She frowns at their passing but continues regardless. Her stomach rumbles at the smell of cooking meat that wafts from many of the smoking houses. She had heard of these designs, _longhouses _they were called; scoffed upon by those in the great cities. Such savages, they'd murmur in their own homes of brick and stone, living in places with so many families and such little comfort. And so low to the ground! They're simply inviting pests and rodents to make their own nests within their bedding.

But she sees nothing wrong with them now upon viewing them with her own eyes. In fact, as the smoke curls lazily around the wooden roofs, Santana finds them rather quaint. Simple housing for - from what she can currently see - relatively simple people.

She receives a few more stares as she passes into the heart of the town. Nestling momentarily upon the lip of a fountain, she rests her aching soles. Laying her staff before her, she hikes up her simple robes, sweeping her buckskin cloak to one side as she gingerly removes her thin shoes from her feet. The bottoms are frayed and loose. Wool padding escapes from the sides. Whenever she touches the skin, a muffled hiss escapes her clenched lips.

Blisters were uncommon - she'd spent a good portion of her life roaming the grassy mountains and rolling forests in her youth - but now she could feel them under her fingertips, angry and throbbing despite her hardened soles. She stifles a rather violent curse and growls angrily. Flicking off the large hood of her cloak, she grants herself more vision. Raven tresses curl their way down her back as she lets out a puff of air to remove one from her sight.

"Völva?" Her muscles tense as she looks up to be met by a curious pair of hazel eyes. The owner can't be more than twelve, a mop of blond hair upon his head messily contained by a cloth cap. His gaze flicks up to train on her forehead, an excited smile gracing his lips. "Móðir!" He shouts, drawing the attention of a short woman a few paces away. "Móðir!"

Her hand reaches for the staff before she even realizes it, leather grip rough under her fingers. Yet the older woman hurries forward anyway, shushing the bouncing boy with strange, gibberish words. She looks down at Santana and studies her facial expression for a moment. Eyes flicker down to her ruined shoes before returning to her eyes.

Beside them, the boy continues to spout words that make no sense in her head. What language is this tongue?

"What do you want?" She snaps, born more out of confusion than anger. They look at her with puzzlement clear in their faces. "It's obvious that you can't understand me, but why do you feel the need to drag half the town into your ramblings? I've no time to entertain a child who cannot keep his eyes to himself."

It's reassuring, to let the venom pour out but have no threat of violence lingering around the corner. They simply stare for a moment before the mother smiles slightly in sympathy, pointing briefly to her feet and then a stall to her left.

"Skór," she says slowly, like talking to a touched child. "Fyrir fætur þínar." Though the language divide is a nuisance, she spots the boots hanging on display. They call seductively to the silver that jangles in the purse resting against her side.

Santana bites her lip in deliberating before nodding and getting up, placing more of her weight upon her staff than perhaps healthy. The world sways with her for a moment, but she blinks exhaustion from her eyes and offers a genuine smile. "Thank you." She says, fingers reaching out to tap the little boy's chest bone. She saw no cross nor white robe upon their skin, which allows her to take her chances.

"Let the Goddess be with you, young one," As her fingers press down, she feels the energy flow gently from her skin to his. He must feel it too, for he shudders slightly. "and with you." Santana repeats the motion upon the older woman, and they share a knowing look. The two mutter something pleased in their own language before disappearing into the crowd.

Alone again, she makes her way to the previously seen stall. Bodies brush by, and all around her is the stench of animals, farmers and traders moving to and fro in their daily struggles. Once she reaches the counter, she lays her palm flat against the wood while letting her eyes roaming the displays.

One set seems rather sturdy, almost knee high and made of leather. From what she can see, they're lined with some kind of animal fur, soles thick and strong, fastened by little toggles that run up the outside of the calf. Santana waits impatiently for the crafter, nails drumming along the worn surface.

As she waits, her mind begins to drift back to the patched forest floors of her home. She misses those runs dearly. Every root and tree familiar to her touch. The smoky smell of her house as her mother prepared the stew. A lingering scent of lavender and sage always drives away the negative spirits and feeds them good fortune - even the bushel of bay leaves that hung over the door, dried and brittle, to usher prosperity. They'd murmur wishes over each to imbue their force within, fingers ghosting upon the stems.

What of her mother? Did she escape the clutches of the missionaries? She'd had so little time to prepare and so many things to say as those hands that had raised and loved her shoved her from the door with urgency, whispering a fearful parting even with promises to stay safe. Her mother was the High Priestess of the land - surely not a few men with torches and thick, confusing books could take her so easily? But then why had she been so adamant that Santana was to run, not stay and hide? Perhaps she knew something her daughter didn't, tucked away and kept safe in the depths of her mind.

Now wandering a foreign land, she longed for nothing more than the sanctity of her mother's embrace. She had always convinced herself an adult. But some things never change, and she was not scared to admit she was far out of her depth.

The chilled air bites at her skin as a shadow fills her vision, tall and imposing with massive arms and a long beard. She tightens the hinge of her jaw but refuses to back down. His gaze sweeps over her, deliberating, as he utters a greeting her tongue doesn't wish to reciprocate.

"Those ones," she points at the previously seen pair. "I want those ones."

He blinks as her words cascade around him but follows her line of sight, reaching out to grab the boots. The crafter places them gently on the table and her fingers map over every detail, tugging at the straps and smoothing the leather. The insides are layered with sheepskin; her feet throb tenfold within her ruined shoes. She nods once to herself.

"How much do you want for them?" She asks before she remembers he doesn't understand, and huffs in irritation before tugging out her purse. It jingles in her palm, much lighter than she originally set out with. Santana frowns. "How much?" She repeats, drawing out a few silver coins before motioning to give it to him. The man rubs his beard in thought, saying something incomprehensible before curling his fingers in until only one sticks out. Her eyebrows raise but she presses the single coin into his palm regardless, smiling tentatively when he grins in return.

Santana retreats to the fountain with a hasty dip of her head. She wastes no time in shedding her old slippers and tugging on the new boots, bouncing on the soles of her feet and feeling the sheepskin worm between her toes. Relief threads through her veins - perhaps things will start looking up?

She sets herself down again, careful not to dip her fingers in the freezing water, and kicks out her heels with her head tilted back. Just a moment of rest, that's all...

Something large suddenly brushes against her legs. She yelps and snaps out her staff, impacting solid muscle and fur with a sharp crack. The thing yips and scurries away, just out of reach, much to her chagrin. The dark girl stumbles to her feet, glaring at the large form that peers back at her with confused eyes.

Its paws shuffle along the dirt as it slinks around her, pointed ears pulled back sadly over its head. She assumes it to be a northern breed, tall and strong, as the strange black and white markings are foreign to her. The muzzle is narrow, nose snuffling as it inches towards her before a threatening wave of her staff sends it scuttling away.

"I don't have anything for you," she grumbles at it, glaring into the small eyes. "You have to go find some other person to harass for scraps."

Instead of hearing her warning, the blasted thing sits down with its tongue lolling out as the bushy, sickle shaped tail curls around its haunches. Even as her scowl intensifies, its ears lift from the head and stick straight up, twitching ever so slightly. It seems completely fixated on her, like it's awaiting an order.

"Shoo! I don't have the time nor patience for a mutt like you."

A quiet huff leaves its mouth, but it remains silent.

"This is your last warning, stupid thing," she raises the staff again, "before I strike you so hard you'll crawl back to your mother's womb."

They stare at each other for a moment before she throws her hands up in defeat, shivering at the cool wind that once again slices through her robes. As if sensing her plight, the tail begins to sweep in a large arc over the dusty ground. It almost looks like it's smiling, shifting restlessly in its seat.

"Fine," Santana huffs, hauling herself to a standing position and snorting at how it immediately bounds to be beside her. "but you'll find that I have nothing to give you, nor do you have anything to give me. And I swear, if you get fur all over my robes, I will personally see to it that you become a rug for one of the villagers over in this town. They'd like a nice mutt rug, wouldn't they?"

They make their way towards one of the larger houses that's decorated in various different shields. There's a sign swinging from it in runes with a picture of a tankard painted on the wood. Different people stumble about, laughing uproariously with their cheeks flushed rose and warm. Two men have staggered and fallen to the floor just in front of the tavern, fists swinging clumsily and missing more than they hit.

"Barbarians." she mumbles, pushing aside the hide flap and turning to level a stern glare to the dog that follows at her heels. "You aren't allowed in here. Go find something to do other than stalk me wherever I roam."

The smell of smoke slaps her in the face when she steps through the threshold. Santana blinks once, rubbing at her eyes before taking a cautious look around. Long and narrow, the building is divided into multiple rows by wooden rails. On one side it seems to be split into little rooms where individuals come and go - they pay the ones behind the bar and take whichever suits their fancy. _Finally, a decent bed_, she sighs with relief as she weaves her way around the long benches that house multiple people shoving food into their mouths. Her nose crinkles in mild disgust, and a fleeting thought in her mind is that no matter how poor they were in Iberia, they would never eat like she's witnessing now.

She's not sure if it's comforting or unnerving how far away this is from everything she knows.

The feathers on her cloak brush her jaw as the hood jostles against her shoulder blades. She resists the urge to swipe at them and focuses on not being bowled over by the large bodies bustling past. Santana fights her way forward, stabbing her staff into the fleshy crooks of knees and ankles as she passes.

She eventually surfaces near the counter, patting her side to ensure she still has her coin purse. Naturally, the tender spots her darker forearm before anybody else's, and he shuffles his way towards her. His leg, supported by a cane, drags behind him.

"Já?" He asks, bushy eyebrows raising over his forehead. Santana grimaces, pointing at her coins then one of the little rooms.

One blind eye rolls to take rest on her and she grits her teeth, refusing the urge to mutter a quick prayer. The milky film over it makes her nerves shudder in unease, almost as if he is staring through her. From what she's seen, and the lack of markings upon his skin, he's no mystic that she should be wary of. He holds out three bony fingers.

"Þrír."

She scowls and raises a single digit. "One."

"Tvö og hálft." One goes down, curving nail tucking out of sight, but he scatters a handful of copper coins to be what she deduces as half an ounce of silver.

"Two. Last offer."

For years she had spent countless visits bartering with shopkeepers for the best herbs and freshest meats, trading back and forth so quick that others could barely understand them. More often than not she'd emerge victorious with a large smirk and handfuls of bags filled with various items.

He watches her for a moment, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips before he nods, punctuating it by a sharp slap of his palm against the countertop. She jumps.

"Very well. Seems this language divide won't be all bad if I can manage something like this..."

Santana trails off with a frown, fingers scraping the bottom of the small purse and coming up simply with a single silver and a few copper coins. Where did the rest of her money go? She remembers using it sparingly on her trip to the North, but the journey was long and the stops many. Is she really penniless on top of everything else?

She motions for him to wait a moment and scans the crowd. Stealing isn't an option, not here where she blends so miserably with the rest of the population. She can't work without knowing how to speak. It gets cold late at night, and a warm bed to burrow down in (regardless if they hold vermin like her kinsmen whispered) would do wonders for her morale.

But then again, she thinks as her eyes lay onto a few musicians, perhaps she doesn't necessarily need to speak to use her voice.

With a quiet murmur she vanishes into the crowd again, swatting away wayward feet and tugging her cloak close to herself. The closer she nears them the louder the music becomes, drunken crowing that seems to actually be in tune. People dance with each other; her eyes widen as two men swing each other in a circle, grinning all the while. The same sex? It was such a taboo in Iberia that even she had ceased to speak of it, only heard in the most vile and depraved of rooms.

Her fingers itch as she lays her eyes upon the musicians plucking away at the strings of their small lyres. The gentle sound wraps around her head and tugs her back home, where the two beggars would perch upon the street corners, singing loud and clear throughout the day. Sometimes she'd sit with them for hours, feeling their wizened fingers position hers and stroke the chords that would produce the correct sounds. She grins and taps one of the players on the shoulder, sliding into a smirk at his startled expression.

"May I play?"

He studies her, a hint of yellowing teeth peeking out from under chapped lips as his buddies chortle and jostle each other. Santana's hand goes out, palm up, hovering over the lyre. "The lyre. Could I use it?"

His fingers drum on the wood and he lifts his arm, large digits hovering just over her forehead. She doesn't blink as he traces over the arch, pressing the very pads of his fingertips to the three teardrops marked below it. They remain motionless for a moment before he dips his head and lets out a scintillating grin that melts his ferocious expression into something much less intimidating.

"Spákonu vill á hörpu? Hún mun fá á hörpu!" The musician grins again and presses the small lyre into her palms with a nod. Getting up from his chair, he lumbers off into the crowd. Perched upon his vacated seat, all eyes turn to her as the music dies off. Inquisitive eyes gleam in the half-dark, so she clears her throat and brushes her fingers along the well-worn strings.

"I know you can't understand me, but I hope that you'll enjoy my voice."

She swallows once and opens her mouth; willing her tongue to push forward the lyrics that rest in the back of her throat, waiting - a panther stalking its prey.

"Tell me the tales you used to sing

Before the world stole your tongue

How kings would stop and listen

To the stories that you had spun,"

Her voice washes over them like smooth honey. Santana feels her energy flow and tickle the back of her throat, escaping in the loops of her words, raw and raspy but enchanting in all the right ways. They all tilt their faces to her, a sun that bathes them in double-edged warmth, and sway along to the tinkling of her lyre.

"I dreamt a dream the night passed

Of men upon the battlefield

Who would cry wolf and shout o'er the hills

Crawling for a chance at their last meal

When giants still shook the land

And thieves and beggars ruled

Tell me, my love, what did you see?

So very long, long ago."

A low hum rumbles in her chest as they move forward to drop little copper coins into a tankard by her feet. She smiles at each and every one even as her voice stings down to their very bones, soothing afterwards with a velveteen tongue to seal the wounds. Behind her, those with other instruments have picked up the melody and carry her through the journey.

The bartender nods to himself and taps his cane absently on the ground, coming startling close to the same melody the beggars upon the streets used to play. She blinks once but shakes her head, forcing her voice to fill the vast space to bursting.

"But you lay silent now

And the dirt brushes down to your soul

Was it the men, my love, that took your breath?

Or mayhaps the things you were never supposed to know?

I will sit by you until you rise again

Bleached bones gleam white in the sun

I never understood much of this life

But kept faith in the things that you have done."

As she fades out, they shake their heads like coming from a daze, the clink of her tankard loud against the stillness. She curtseys once, and they howl their applause. Their feet stomp upon the ground even as she lays the lyre upon the seat and descends again with shaky legs. Everything is vibrating, from the tips of her toes to the roots of her hair, the swish of the eternal power the Goddess gives rushing loud in her veins. Santana empties the coins into her hand and shuffles back to the countertop, smiling slightly and offering them to him. He responds with a grin and takes them with utmost care while motioning to one of the many rooms. She laughs gratefully as they all hoot at her departing.

Once safe inside her little room, she closes her eyes against the exhaustion that presses against the backs of her teeth. With a quick stroke of her thumb against the sturdy wood, she lays her staff against the wooden wall, unlatching her cloak from her shoulders and folding it on the small bedside table. The raven feathers obscuring the dark-stained leather seem to shimmer as she pats it down once, peeling off her new boots and falling heavily into the bed.

The straw crinkles in protest against her weight, but she can't be bothered by the pieces that prod at her skin. Santana's limbs wind in the coarse linen blankets with an audible sigh of relief. She sheds months' worth of tension from her skin as a snake would peel back to its bones, burying her face in the stale pillow and letting her robes settle around her. Countless hours upon the dusty roads has wearied her something beyond physical, trapped in a place she doesn't know with people she can't understand.

Oh, if only the snobbish nobles could see her now.

Despite the influx of power thrumming through her flesh, her eyes droop closed. The din of the tavern lulls her into a reassuring doze. Her finger comes up to tap her forehead lightly, mumbling a soft whisper to her mother.

As she falls into fitful dreams, she sees all the things she's tried hard to forget.

* * *

><p><em>Soft hands on her face. Gentle words in her ear, urgent, shaking her awake. Santana blinks away the murky night that's snuck into their home, the heel of her palm grinding into her eye to erase the remnants of sleep.<em>

_ "Mami?" She rasps, tongue thick in her mouth. "What's the matter? Has Bella gone into labour?"_

_ But something is wrong in the faint lines of her mother's face; they are tense, taut, afraid. She sits up straighter, watching in confusion as the older woman bustles about, drawing a long rawhide belt from their drawers and begins to clip items onto them._

_ "Santana, go put on your travelling robes." Her voice is loud in the stillness, an unease crawling into her bones._

_ "Are we going somewhere? It's still so dark out."_

_ "Mija, please." There it is again - the slight tremble in her mother's timbre, foreign in her throat. Santana doesn't waste anymore time, scrambling out of her nightgown and throwing it in a heap by her bed. First came on the thin shift, almost fluorescent against the shadowed room, whispering softly against her caramel skin. It clings to her curves as she wraps the sleeves around her forearms, tightening the waist and then allowing her to slip the heavier grey wool overtop. It settles nicely over her shoulders and she smooths down the front, plucking at the laces by her collar to escape the humid Iberian heat._

_ The fabric brushes at her ankles as she hurries over, loose material swaying over her thighs. Her mother purses her lips before looping the belt around her waist; it jingles and Santana looks down to see the coin __purse strapped to one side. "Mami, please," she begs, lacing her fingers with older ones that have nurtured her throughout her childhood, "what's going on? You're scaring me."_

_ In the dark her mother's eyes seem to glow softly, sweeping over that familiar facial structure before cupping one cheek in her graceful palm. Santana leans greedily into the embrace._

_ "Ricardo told me that the missionaries are coming soon with their forces to take back the cities," she whispers, voice sad, "and they're going to pass through here. They know of us, what we do. They aren't as forgiving as those in Jaca. We aren't safe here anymore." As Santana's jaw opens to protest, her mother places a finger upon her lips. "I've scryed, mija. He's true to his word. There must be hundreds of them."_

_ "Can't we simply hide?"_

_ "We have never hid who we are, and I am not about to start now for a group of blind hounds. This crusade has already taken the lives of countless men and women who they deem... heathens." She spits the word like it is acid upon her tongue._

_ The younger girl blinks once and leans back slightly, noting her mother's lack of apparel. "Where are your robes, then? We should leave as soon as we can."_

_ All at once her eyes fill with brimming sadness, deep and endless. The chocolate brown of her gaze is replaced with chilled pitch._

_ "You are going alone, Santana."_

_ The warmth in her body vanishes. Her fingers tremble as she clutches desperately onto her mother, roaming her face as if she's to find the answers she seeks. The older Lopez simply shakes her head sadly and swipes away the tears forming at the edges of her daughter's eyes. "But Mami... we can go together. We're stronger when we put our forces as one-"_

_ "And we're also more recognizable." She murmurs, shushing her only child once again. "If they spot two women walking the paths, there will be no denying who we are, especially at our close resemblance. Our only chance is to split up and go different ways and manage to slip away separately."_

_ Santana's unable to find her tongue, paralyzed at the thought of venturing out into the world without her best and only companion by her side. Even now, a horrible lump fills her throat, causing a __soft whimper to slip from her lips._

_ "Oh, mija," she whispers, though tears fill her own eyes, "please don't cry. You were never meant to stay here with me forever."_

_ "But I could have!" She sniffs, the back of her hand angrily rubbing away the salt that obscures her vision. "And I would! Please, don't make me go without you. Please." The priestess simply rubs her daughter's arms and whispers for her to finish gathering her things. She does so, numb, stumbling around their little home and doing her best to stifle the sobs that wish to rise from her throat. Even with something so wrong her whole body aches from it, she was never able to deny her mother anything._

_ She clumsily tightens her belt, brushing over the packed medicine horn. She had blown on the end countless times to emit a deep, warbling sound that made the birds fly in fright from the trees, only to receive a tap on the nose from her mother. It was made to pack all the necessary medicinal supplies into the crevice, plugged up and kept safe that now hangs around her lower back. A small, simple knife, weighty piece of flint, and the most money she's ever had at one time also adorns her sash._

_ Santana's eyes flit around, reaching without delay for her ashen staff. The wood is warm in her palms despite not being touched, and a wave of mild calm rushes through her upon wrapping her fingers along the rawhide. She shuffles outside into the dark where her mother awaits with a lamp._

_ Ever so silently she hooks it over a post and brushes the backs of her fingers along Santana's cheekbone. From her pocket comes a leather string, adorned with beads made of amethysts that seem to ward away the darkness. Beyond that, hawk feathers are tied onto the end. "Your first talisman," she says, tying it to a tendril of the gnarled, knotted tip "for protection and luck."_

_ Santana bites her lip and shakes on the spot even as the older woman dips down to pull out a long, unravelling fabric. Her nails catch along the leather grip of her staff as a cloak settles around her shoulders - black as night, deer hide covered with a glossy sheen of raven feathers that hide the material underneath. Even now she feels the power of the animal curl its mighty wings around her body. _

_ "It's been in our family for a long time. May it give you cunning and a silver tongue - but we already know that's not a problem for you." They try to attempt a smile, but it feels hollow and forced upon her cheeks. Her mother presses the reins of their awaiting horse, Agate, into her trembling palms._

_ "Be strong, mija, be brave." She murmurs hoarsely, fingers coming up to brush against Santana's forehead. She reaches into her daughter's little pouch and draws upon a few crumblings of red ochre, spitting into her palm and turning it into a paste. Gently, she presses the wet substance against her skin; for a moment Santana simply closes her eyes, but snaps them open again when the pattern is foreign against her skull._

_ "Mami?" She asks uncertainly, gripping the reins tight._

_ "You have earned your title as priestess," is her response, forming three drops under the curve, "and you are no longer a child. Your training is not complete, but neither is mine. It won't ever be."_

_ Her hands blindly reach for her and she melts into her mother, burying her face in the crook of the older woman's neck. The symbol etched into her forehead feels cold and foreboding, crawling upon __her skin like she has no reason to keep it there. Still, she presses her lips gently against warm skin, sobbing freely as the high priestess clings to her in return._

_ "I love you, Santana, don't you ever doubt that." she coos, over and over again as her hands form patterns on the lithe muscle of her back. From her pocket she draws a simple chain, looping it around Santana's curved neck and fastening it at the back. The girl blinks as it nestles against her breastbone and starts to pulse, throbbing low and comforting throughout her body. Her mother's heartbeat._

_ "My last boon to you, little one. Whenever you roam, you will always be connected to me," she tugs on her nightgown and reveals an identical necklace, white gem shimmering in the dark of the night, "and I will always be connected to you. We will find our way back to each other eventually, mija, I promise you this."_

_ "When?" Santana asks even as she hoists herself up on Agate's saddle, gathering the reins with one hand and clutching her staff with the other._

_ "I do not know, but the Fates have spoken. Now __**go!**__" Her palm strikes the horse and it rears, giving a deafening shriek before the clomp of hooves scramble off into the shadows._

_ Merely four days later, the Christian forces sweep into the little town of Botaya._

* * *

><p>Santana wakes to the sound of barking, fast and distressed, coupled with a nose that snuffles at her outstretched hand.<p>

She groans once and turns over in her bed, screwing her eyes closed and twining herself deeper into the blankets. Still, the angry sounds follow her. They're broken every so often by a warm tongue rasping along the line of her jaw, cold nose now pressing against her collarbone. Her hands come up; fingers wind in short fur and face burying into a warm pelt.

Hold on.

The priestess yelps and shoves the blasted dog from her bed, rolling away and sitting up rapidly. To its defence, the thing doesn't even seem offended; its curved tail vibrates up on its back as its small ears pull back to pin against the flat of its skull, head swivelling from side to side with a hint of white teeth exposed from under tight jowls. She scowls once, tilting her gaze upwards and noting that the sun has set overhead.

"What the hell was that for? I was sleeping the best I had for years before you went and interrupted me, mangy mutt. No wonder nobody likes you, rousing them from their rightly deserved slumber."

Still, something seems off - its large body is vibrating with tension, hackles straight on end and a low, rumbling growl spilling from its clenched teeth. Small eyes seem fixated on the gloom just outside her door, like invisible monsters come to play in the night.

Upon closer inspection, she hears people shouting and the faint ring of metal upon metal. Chills shoot frostily down her spine and linger in the curve of her back. Massive thuds hit the side of her room, rocketing her straight into the air.

Santana scrambles up, wincing at the tweak in her muscles but fumbling for her clothes regardless. She yanks on her boots and swears as she flails with the toggles. Snatching up her cloak and wreathing it over her shoulders, she grabs her staff and stumbles to the door. She hesitates for a moment, burying her fingers into the dog's thick coat for reassurance before nudging away the hide and stepping out into the tavern.

At first glance, nothing is amiss. People mill about in the central area, mostly women and children, men dispersed among them. But the glint of steel catches her eye from their clenched fists and upon their forearms rest round shields, flimsy and lopsided but protection none the less. Even the women hold weapons, clutched like a lifeline in their slender, milky fists. Outside the sound of fighting is infinitely louder, waging on with muffled shouts and curses coupled with the screams of the dying. She pales; treating the wounded is one thing, seeing the actions that made them so entirely another.

Her first instinct is to ask what's going on - a foolish notion, considering nobody can understand what she questions. Still, she receives the ward-evil sign as she makes her way forward, slinking cautiously along the sides with tense muscles. The hound matches her pace. Its weight is solid and comforting against her thigh.

Santana contemplates scrying for a moment, but a horrifyingly loud smash and roared insults (she believes them insults - how else can something be spat with so much hatred?) quells that thought. Another glance around the room makes her frown. The men holding the weapons are little more than boys - she sees the child from earlier, his blond locks are obscured by an iron skullcap that's far too big for his head. He looks as terrified as she tries not to feel. She reaches one of the benches and hesitates, opting not to sit down in fear of a moment's rest. Her knuckles turn white against her staff.

There are moments of frenzied breathing. Too many people in a small space, waiting and watching for something they don't know. The battle quiets for a moment, and the collective tavern holds their breath with their eyes trained on the thick flap of cowhide that separates them from the unknown. Naively, Santana believes it to be over.

Chaos.

Burly men come shrieking through the threshold, pouring in like a muddled stream of metal. Swords and axes take the reflected glint of light from the lamps that hang over the beams - they stain with blood as the invaders start hacking without direction. Screams fill the suddenly suffocating area, coppery tang cloying and thick in her nose. She gags and stumbles back blindly, wheeling away from the throbbing mass of bodies with her cloak flying about her shoulders. Her heartbeat spikes, and her mother must feel it, for the necklace seems to burn through her thin robes.

A woman carrying a child falls before her feet, spear buried in her back. The blood seeps through her dress and forms abstract patterns along her skin, mouth open and gaping as she vainly tries to form words. Santana ducks to her, horrified to find it the woman that pointed her to the shoe stall merely a few hours ago.

With trembling fingers, she smooths back a lock of her blonde hair, mumbling incoherent words of reassurance as her face slowly drains of colour. Empty eyes flick up to Santana once, struggling to take in her features, before letting out a draining sigh and fixating on something beyond her shoulder. "Drengur minn," she wheezes, crimson bubbling from her lips in a violent froth. She looks distressed; not about herself, but simply the way her hand twitches towards whatever it is she's looking at. "spara strákinn minn, vinsamlegast..."

The mystic turns and spots the young boy from earlier being backed into a corner, eyes wide and frightful as two warriors prod him with swords. He's obviously trapped - the way his axe wavers in the air as he vainly parries the strikes seems indication of that.

She could run. In the heat of battle, nobody would see her slip out, take off for the next village with nobody the wiser. Yet her marking stings upon her forehead and she finds herself unable to take her eyes away, body beginning to thrum with something familiar yet utterly foreign. "I'll take care of it. Y-you rest." The woman closes her eyes and lets out a rattling sigh - she's not dead, but the cold embrace has begun to nip at her toes.

Her feet plant as she holds her staff out. Forcing herself to empty her mind of the screaming and fighting that swirls all around her, she inhales and holds it deep in her belly. It becomes simply a wall of white noise, battering her to and fro like an angry god. Wind begins to stir at her hair despite the walls that stand tall. Nails bite into the grey wood as she grits her teeth and lets the tingling spread through to her fingers, her eyes, the tip of her tongue and the soles of her feet. The tide within her is strong, aching to burst free. She opens her eyes, falling back as She takes control. All the things she wasn't allowed to use - all the hate and the anger and the sadness - concentrates in her palms, rushing from her staff and back through her body in an endless circuit. Ataecina gave life-giving grain, so too does she tend the dead. Her body reacts, letting out a mighty yell. "So you have sown, you shall reap!"

The weapon swirls around her head for a moment before striking the ground with a dull thud, which is amplified tenfold louder than what it should be. From the impact of the hit bursts forth waves of deep blue in a narrow line, sweeping through the room to slam into the warriors surrounding the boy. They stagger and fall, biting the dirt. He bolts, quickly running to where he sees his mother struggling for consciousness. Santana for her part stands sentry, the Mother protecting the Children at her feet.

Three of the invaders break off and narrow onto her. Their steps are heavy and voices jeering. The dog snaps at their heels and keeps them at bay but has to dodge their weapons that aim for its throat. It sinks back beside her, crouched and menacing, lips curled into a snarl. The power in her body is still running strong, circulating through her limbs and into the air around her that crackles with invisible energy, but her eyes slip in and out of focus, the room blurring as it threatens to consume her.

One tries to swipe, and her staff comes out in an arc, blue waves feeling almost as if they burst from her chest as that same electricity runs out of her arms and into a wide swath. It impacts them solidly and sings of collapsing metal. Something whispers in her ear, and she spins just in time to plant the butt of her weapon into the thigh of an attacker positioned behind her form which sends him sprawling into the dust.

She feels like an avenging god.

More have advanced towards her, allowing the villagers to regroup and fight back. Santana struggles to keep her face into a fierce scowl, fighting back the creeping heaviness in her limbs, rapidly sapping her strength. It takes a snap of wood to one face and a bolt of blue to the chest of another for them to understand and back off from the strange foreigner with skin like honey but eyes like thunderstorms.

Her stance is wider now, staff clutched in her right hand. The beads touch the ground as the rest runs snugly up her back in a diagonal fashion to appear over her left shoulder. Santana's other hand is extending and curled into a claw, invisible retaliation gathering in the cup of her palm even as she sways slightly on her feet. Every ounce of her stamina is being focused in the center of her forehead, causing her mark to throb as it sends out stability to the rest of her body, begging it to stay upright and strong. Her ribcage is visible from under her robes as she heaves, sweat running down her temples.

One warrior steps forth but halts before reaching the danger zone - she recognizes him as the one to have spun away from the incoming blast with respectable finesse. He had watched his comrades hit the ground and learned, leaping this way and that but kept at bay with the combined force of her magic and the dog's angry jowls. Even now, axe held firmly in one hand and round shield in the other, he makes no move to attack.

"Well?" She hisses, air bloating slightly around her as her temper spikes. They seem to feel it as they look at each other in uneasiness while chattering in their broken tongue. The sobs of the boy behind her are rattling, wobbling her concentration. "Are you just going to stand there like mongrels or is one of you going to take a swipe at me? I assure you that by the end of tonight, I will have sent as many of you back to your foolish gods as I possibly can."

The venom in her own voice surprises her. Yet the slim fighter simply cocks his head to the side and slowly secures his axe in his long belt to the mumblings of his confused comrades. Santana tilts her own face in confusion as long fingers grip the edges of his helmet to reveal... a girl.

She muffles her own gasp and simply stares as the long blond braid falls over a narrow shoulder, posture straight and relaxed as she connects with a pair of bright blue eyes that reflect the dull light of the lanterns. The warrior girl keeps her shield to her side, cautiously half-raised but not in a threatening manner, studying Santana with interest. She scowls at the scrutiny and the dog (your dog, her mind whispers) growls in return.

" Völva." Her body bends into a deep bow, ends of her pleated braid brushing the dusty ground. Santana stares in blatant disbelief, energy ebbing slightly from her limbs as her brows furrow in an attempt to make sense of the situation. Around her the male warriors chatter, some with amusement and others impatience, most with curiosity.

It's not the first time she's heard that word directed to her, so she frowns again. Fixing the strange girl with what she hopes is a piercing glare. But from the exhaustion rimming her eyes, she wouldn't be surprised if it was simply pleading. "What in the Goddess' name is a völva? I'd love to know, because frankly, I'm getting tired of not being able to understand everything that people say about me."

They stare at each other blankly for a moment before the blonde's lips curl into an amused smile. She shifts and the tip of her spear catches the light, warm and sticky with blood. Santana blanches.

" Völva." She says calmly, tapping her forehead once then swishing her spear around. The priestess can't help but notice each swath in the air is sharp and precise, slicing down with a vicious accuracy she doesn't want to experience. It's silent again until, much to her amusement, she makes little blasting noises with her mouth, slamming her spear into the ground and lunging forward in a graceful arch only to feint backwards before Santana has time to tense. So völva means prophetess? Useful to know they understand her meaning despite being so far away from home.

The clawed hand goes to bury into her dog's fur, threading through the strands and trying to calm it down. It leans into her touch but refuses to relax, its eyes still trained on the mysterious warrior ahead of them.

As if summoned, the girl steps forward once, planting her spear in the ground beside her and straightening, widening her lean shoulders and lifting her chin. In this stance it's easier to inspect the chain mail shirt she wears, cinched in by a long belt with a large loop nestling against her abdomen. Boots similar to Santana's adorn her feet, leggings made up of thick leather and obviously tailored to fit. What kind of society lets women fight in their ranks? Her helmet lies forgotten on the ground.

"Bretagne." She says, startling Santana out of her observations. One ebony eyebrow arches in confusion.

"Excuse me?" Her puzzlement must show on her face, for the girl simply smiles again and points this time to herself. "Bretagne." Then she goes around, naming the remaining warriors in the room.

"B-Bri-ta..." she scowls and swallows once, disliking the way the syllables stick together on her tongue. Yet she's being watched with a pair of curious, feline eyes, so she tries again. "Bri-tta-ny?" She knows she's butchered the pronunciation, but Brittany simply grins this time, the motion lighting up her whole face. The mystic starts to smile in return, but tugs it down with a fierce grimace before it becomes too obvious.

She's then pointed at with the blunt end of her long spear. She hesitates once but decides it can't get much worse. Against her, the gemstone hums thoughtfully.

"Santana."

Brittany seems to pause, moving her jaw almost as if to taste the letters. When she repeats it back, the accent is strange, but the syllables in their correct placing. The priestess nods, and the warrior simply _bounces_ on her spot. "Góður! Santana, koma með okkur!"

Charcoal eyes blink in confusion. "What?"

Brittany stares at her for a moment before sighing and rolling her eyes at herself. Waving her over this time with an outstretched hand, the darker skinned girl scowls and shuffles back a step, posture hunched and protective. Her heel brushes against the limp hand of the dying (dead?) mother, and is brutally reminded of what these invaders can do.

The male warriors advance again, but a small voice breaks the mounting tension.

"Vikingur." She starts and turns to face the little boy, face blotchy and tears running in streaks down his thin cheeks. Blood stains his hands and he holds his mother's face, drawn and pale, in his lap.

"Say that again." Santana is seriously starting to get tired of this.

"Þeir eru allir víkingar." He repeats, gazing at each one of them in turn. She flips the words over in her mind quickly, eyes darting back and forth. Vikingar? She's sworn she's heard that before. They're whispered prayers of the English as they seek refuge from the North. They mumble of savagery and broken shields and frozen winters. Massive, majestic ships with equally huge men, sporting hair of fine gold and tongues soiled with filth. Vikins? Vukings? No, no... viking. Vikings!

It all snaps into place with startling swiftness, and terror gives her a second wind. Her staff lashes out, and the blast shockwaves with an unprecedented viciousness, flooring most of the men. Brittany drops to the ground so fast she's spared the brunt of the hit, sliding off her back and simply sending cold chills down her spine. Yet the unexpected nature drains Santana more than she could have hoped against, and she staggers once as her stick plants into the ground to hold her upright.

Her mutt hugs against her side, and she places another hand against its back to help distribute the weight, lifting her head just in time to see the fallen vikings staggering up with anger written clear over their faces. She tries but fails to summon any extra reserves, and simply squares her jaw to wait for the inevitable bite of a sword.

The bite that never comes.

A harsh command rings out into the air, snapping all their muscles into stillness.

"Stöðva! Hún er spákonu!" Brittany all but snarls, eyes sharp as flint. One viking, young, with too much fire in his gaze, continues advancing despite the guttural warning.

Next thing she knows he's howling on the floor, clutching at his thigh that has a sturdy spear lodged into it, blood trickling from the messy wound. The girl-warrior strides forwards angrily, grabbing at the shaft and yanking it free. He roars. She hadn't even seen her throw it. "Ég sagði þér að hætta." The blonde hisses before shaking her head before turning her gaze back to a pale and swaying Santana.

Instead of appealing to her with words that make no sense, she reaches into her shirt and tugs out a necklace on a thin, gleaming chain. On it is something she recognizes - the pagan symbol for protection, taken from their ancestors and used in many rituals.

"Gyda'r weddi hon yn gofyn i'r Dduwies i'n amddiffyn," Santana starts, tongue wrapping around the ancient prayer with much more ease than their harsh language that does nothing but confuse her, "a chynnal fi rhag y gwyntoedd a fyddai'n gwneud niwed i mi." Brittany finishes with a blinding smile.

The mystic hesitates, sucking one firm lip in between her teeth in thought. The blonde was obviously welcoming enough, attempting to soothe her fears with recitations and defending her when others would strike. But how safe is she, really? There's no telling how high rank Brittany is, nor if she's capable of being overturned once they reach wherever they live. The decisions are too complicated, the price too high.

A small hand tugs at her robes, face unusually stern. He looks resigned, sad, but motions to Brittany's form with a nod of his head. "Fara." He says, making a shooing motion with his hands before tapping her forehead once like so many before him. All those that have been welcoming of her status seem to give her wide birth, even a respect she doesn't feel she deserves without proving herself. Perhaps things are different, up in the North. Once glance at Brittany says she thinks the truth. "Þeir drepa þig ef þú ekki fara."

The way the blonde's eyes narrow at the boy seems that he speaks some sort of treason even as the men shift beside her restlessly. Santana takes one more glance around at the corpses strewn around her, villagers subdued and shackled, before heaving a sigh and resigns herself to an unknown fate.

"Let's go."

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><p><strong>Translations!<strong>

**Völva: Priestess**

**Móðir: Mother**

**Skór, fyrir fætur þínar: Shoes, for your feet**

**Já: Yes**

**Spákonu vill á hörpu? Hún mun fá á hörpu!: The priestess wants the harp? She will get the harp!**

**Drengur minn, spara strákinn minn, vinsamlegast...": My boy, save my boy, please**

**Góður! Santana, koma með okkur: Good! Santana, come with us**

**Vikingur: Viking**

**Þeir eru allir víkingar: They're all vikings**

**Stöðva! Hún er spákonu: Stop! She's a prophetess!**

**Ég sagði þér að hætta: I told you to stop**

**Gyda'r weddi hon yn gofyn i'r Dduwies i'n amddiffyn: With this prayer I ask the Goddess to protect me**

**A chynnal fi rhag y gwyntoedd a fyddai'n gwneud niwed i mi: And carry me from the winds that would do me harm**

**Fara: Go**

**Þeir drepa þig ef þú ekki fara: They'll kill you if you don't go**


	3. Chapter 3

[A/N: I've returned with a new chapter for you all! I'm so grateful for your words of encouragement that you've left me - and I've never received so many hits on a story! Though that reminds me. I see you all lurking around being silent. Drop a review! It lights up my day and even spurs me on to write. I didn't go through my beta this time because I'm impatient, so all faults are mine for this chapter. Enjoy.]

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><p>Pillars of smoke tower high above the houses as Brittany argues her way out of the tavern. It's taken some injuries and growled threats, but together they duck out of the room and out into the crisp evening air. Flames lick bright along the side of her face and she watches them reflect in Santana's eyes, glossing them over and offering no glimpse inside. Even so, the shadows cast highlight the tired droop of her posture, weight leaning heavily on her intricate staff even as her face is expressive with caution. In the night, sounds of screaming reach them. They both grimace.<p>

"Come on," says the blonde, beckoning with a nod of her head as she easily grips her spear in her weapon arm and half-raises her shield arm protectively in front of them. Her eyes scan the various warriors rushing about; some still hack at the villagers while others gloat over their spoils, hooting and roaring to the sky as they hoist barrels and boxes to bring to the docks. Their training is violent but purposeful - each cut is aimed to harm. They pass a group in chains and she ignores as they hiss and spit at her, eyes training forward even as she reaches for Santana and the girl flinches subtly away from her.

The shield-maiden aches to ask the darker girl all means of questions - where does she come from and what does she speak and how is she able to summon something from nothing - but appreciates the cruel twist of irony that separates their realities. Still, her mouth seems to babble without intention. "I'd love to know where you come from. You have such funny clothes and a strange tongue - not that there's anything wrong with your tongue! Your words are just all bizarre, smooth and subtle that seems impossible to say. They all kind of bleed together, you know? And your skin is so pretty. Apart from Mikhail I've never seen somebody with skin like yours, and it's even better than his. I'm just boring white." She feels eyes boring into the side of her head and flushes deeply, colour creeping along the bridge of her nose and through her pale cheeks. Even from her position feebly glaring dead ahead, she spots the inquisitively raised eyebrow and the small smirk along the other girl's lips.

Perhaps that's the whole beauty of this. She can speak her mind where elsewhere she'd have to watch her words (not that she often does) and risk humiliation. It's freeing, the more she dwells on it.

"No tengo ni noción de lo que usted acaba de decir." Santana informs her, a hint of amusement within the exhaustion. She watches the blood rush down to stain a hidden collarbone, biting back a tugging against the corners of her mouth. Somehow, Brittany understands.

"I know you don't." She grumbles irritably, swerving towards the main square. The fighting is louder here, and the severity of the situation bleeds the flush from her cheeks faster than a swim in the freezing ocean they sail upon. Her fingers tighten along the spear as they stalk forward, Santana stumbling once but knuckles equally stark upon her weapon.

Buildings are consumed by flame, walls smashed in, furniture lying in ruin upon the road. Bodies scatter the dirt, marred with gaping wounds and silent screams. Despite the amount of times she's seen the same brutality, she experiences a flash of disgust before adrenalin takes over, hardening her face into a thick mask of painted stone. Together they march towards the sea, only half-listening to Santana's mumbles slurring into a singular stream of noise that wraps her up in a cocoon and deadens the ache of bruises that have begun to form.

Magic.

The blonde looks over at her companion and frowns at the sweat that beads her brow, skin too pale despite the pigment. There is a subtle tremble that's starting in her free hand, fingers shivering by her side until she clenches them into a fist. Their eyes meet, and though she doesn't stop her chant, she swallows and gestures onwards.

So they walk.

Aarhus is larger than she anticipated, and soon enough they find themselves in the thick of the struggle. Their forms are lost in the drowning roar of battle as they slink carefully along the sides, shying away from angry warriors clashing with desperate men, swords flashing bright to cut away the gloom. Brittany tenses as an axe sails too close for comfort - she staggers back just as it imbeds itself into the wall next to her head. She turns, shield raised to cover her body, and blanches at the foaming man opposite her. Berserker.

She's only ever had encounters with few; men who rile themselves into a frenzy, howling and snarling like dogs, feeling no pain even as the weapons bite into them again and again. His eyes lack intelligence and his mouth bleeds where he's bitten off the edges of his shield. Muscles bulge, and she darts back as he lunges. They know no alliance in the bloodlust, only the thrill of death. She recognizes him briefly as one of Sveinn's men.

The second time he attacks she raises her shield to meet him and the feeling of metal on wood is jarring, the shock travelling through her whole body where it vibrates her bones. Still, Brittany grunts and pushes back, swiping the rim of her shield outwards from the block to create distance. The shaft of her spear is slippery in her vice-grip but she refuses to show fear. He huffs and twirls his axe in his hand, sightless gaze falling upon Santana until Brittany grabs his attention again with an angered thrust of her weapon - it strikes true and sinks itself into the meat of his shoulder. To her horror, he doesn't even seem to feel it, simply wrenching the weapon away from her and forcing her to block another brutal blow as her hands scrabble for the handaxe strapped to her belt.

Pain sears along the ridge of her jaw as his hand flashes out before she recovers and grazes the skin, cutting enough to bleed but not to maim. Santana stifles a gasp from behind her and all of a sudden her chanting swells, bloating Brittany with something she can't quite identify but crawls underneath her flesh, buzzing and humming inside. Her fingers clench as she wrenches the handaxe free, swinging in a tight arch and smiling grimly in satisfaction as the back end cracks against his skull.

The power laying in her limbs rears with Santana's coaxing and he finds himself tumbling to the ground, gushing blood and motionless against the dirt.

She stares dumbly for a moment at the weapon in her hands, uncomprehending. Surely that couldn't have killed him? Yet as the strength crawling through her veins fades out with the voice of the priestess, she finds herself swallowing nausea in the place of determination.

Is this what she's becoming? Another embodiment of the savages that the rich whisper of in their homes to the south? She grits her teeth as she traces the patterns in blood swirling upon the head of her axe, another person's life simply taken away by one rogue swing. The blonde yearns for conflict to be solved without death but is sobered by the unbreakable knowledge that it simply isn't possible, not with so many virile warriors in one space. She doesn't want to be struck down and die - yet as a small, tanned hand hesitantly touches her shoulder, the digits shaking like a leaf, Brittany can't manage to pull away the shame written on her face. She's always been a horrible liar.

It lingers for only a moment, but Santana sees all of it.

"I'm fine," she mumbles, jamming her axe back into her belt. Without the reckless fire she feels heavy and slow, weights attached to her wrists. Her chainmail digs into her shoulders despite the padding underneath, braid pulling at her temples. Everything is amplified and clamouring for attention in a way that never ceases to make her head ache in a way only war can manage. Somehow she manages to wrench the spear from the berserker's shoulder, sticky and stained with fresh gore. "we need to-"

An angry noise before something sweeps her off her feet - Brittany jerks her shield up from the ground, simply holding it above her face and flailing at the feeling of claws scrabbling against her body. She heaves the thing from her chest but it simply returns, hot breath ghosting her face as its jaws snap angrily close to her neck. Its fur is thick in her palms but even as she struggles for dominance, a loud, rich laugh catches her attention.

She looks over at Santana who's grinning wide, hunched over on her staff with dimples forming indents in her cheeks and eyes crinkling with mirth. The hound also halts, scrambling from her prone form to brush up against the smaller girl, nuzzling her legs with its head and drawing long, messy licks over her skin. Brittany groans and closes her eyes for a second, deathly aware of the battle still raging on.

"We need to go." Insists the shield-maiden, smiling freely as Santana coos and runs her fingers through the dog's coat. "It's not safe here." A piercing scream shoves angrily through their little bubble, and all senses of amusement fall from the darker girl's face. Brittany finds herself mourning the loss. Together they creep their way through the chaos, always a mindful eye on the shorter one who seems to find herself falling further and further into a stupor the longer they trudge onwards.

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><p>The first word she can find is magnificent. Despite her near-crippling fatigue, Santana gapes up at the mighty ship that finds its home in the docks of Aarhus, men skittering up and down like ants with slaves and supplies. Her eyes trace the dark wood, studying the bow intently where a carved figurehead is intricately woven into the ship with sculpted chains, arms spread out behind her and tethered to the mass. Her hair tumbles about her shoulders in frozen waves, and the priestess finds herself peering up into her sightless eyes to memorize every detail that presents itself. A raven perches itself upon her shoulder, carved feathers stained black and eyes beady. Upon her back, her own cloak seems to shiver slightly as a stray gust of wind slants her eyes; she squints and the massive wooden raven turns to her, head twisting upon its neck to stare down with something she places as a warning.<p>

Santana leaps back, never breaking eye contact until she impacts another body. She spins wildly, staff brandished in front of her, but lets out a huff of relief disguised with irritation as it's only Brittany. Blue eyes watch her curiously, and she takes a quick glance to the perched beast.

It watches the seas in front, wings folded and gaze straight ahead.

"Watch where you're going! Could have run me right over." It remains to be said that she was the one that jumped back like a person possessed, but she always found it easier to project her annoyance onto other people. The girl-warrior tilts her head, glancing once to her and then to the figurehead.

"Ert þú í lagi?" The darker girl finds she likes the way Brittany sounds - airy and not quite tethered, capable of making her harsh language seem less ragged. It's a stark contrast to the snarled orders from earlier and she wonders how her voice cycles inflection so fast.

"Just tired." She sighs as the question, somehow knowing what she's being asked. The scrutiny makes her squirm for a moment before the blonde brushes past her - not before their fingers graze and Santana snatches them back as if burned. But as her lithe body turns to face her again, she knows Brittany's already felt the trembling that's quickly escalating out of control.

"Koma." Says the girl, but this time it is harder, leaving no room for question. Together they board the gently swaying vessel, noting how the taller girl shoulders through the bustling crowd with little difficulty. They part as she passes or give her more trouble, sneering and pushing her towards the edge. Brittany simply shoves back twice as hard, a hand flashing out to grab Santana's wrist and save her from the wandering eyes of the vikings.

She's never felt so dwarfed than packed among muscular men, skin pale and ruddy from the sun. It's everything she's never learned and finds herself sneaking closer to her only companion despite her pride's inner objections. Hot breath along her heels gives her some relief.

Once upon deck, her eyebrows raise to her hairline at the vast expanse presented to her. Despite having to hop at times to ensure no wandering ropes snag her ankles, the two make their way across the planks. She passes countless rows of benches, each with a long handle protruding close to them that come from the very edges of the boat. Peering down, she can make out the huge oars resting just above the water, massive paddles skimming the surface. The wood is smooth and slippery from use, rawhide frayed and eaten away around the grips. Some already have settled themselves in for the journey home, tending to wounds and kinks, grins along their lips as they regale the other with tales of bravery.

In a twisted sense she supposes she can admire the difference. In Iberia the boys had dark skin and darker eyes with a cruel twist to their mouths, tattooing secrets on the reverse of their skin so only they would be able to know. It was a game of lies and spun webs as they pulled you in so close they could taste your breath, before stealing it from your lips without thought and shoving you away, slinking onto the newest maiden who'd fallen for their manipulative charms.

Yet with all the violence and the rage and the pain that lingers here, she doesn't spy the telltale curl of lies spreading like filth along their skin. No, their light eyes are bright and clear that hold so little but so much at once, filled to bursting on meaningless but not empty things. Perhaps the darkness of skin is related to the darkness of hearts, and if so she feels slightly uncomfortable in Brittany's radiance.

Especially as said girl gestures to the furthest bench with a small smile, letting her lean herself against the back and feel the exhaustion finally unwind and ravage her veins. Her staff stands between her legs and against her shoulder as she settles down and lets out a cracking yawn, lids hooding over pools of night even in the midst of the confusion and booming laughter. All energy has been sucked from the roots of her feet and tips of her fingers, leaving her only to mumble slightly in irritation as her dog worms its way between her knees and guards her from harm.

Brittany giggles quietly and dips her shoulders once, head turning to a loud shout of what should be her name. Santana traces the angry gash on her jaw with what could be a wince but is too tired to become one, curling further into her seat and watching carefully. A massive man with a flaming beard - her eyebrows arch at this, never having seen crimson upon a human - lumbers over to her. His strides are long but graceful, footfalls sure and steady as one fleshy hand reaches out and gently cups the girl's cheek. She leans into the embrace and smiles happily. All traces of the warrior ravaged with guilt has escaped her eyes as quickly as it came to be.

They hold no resemblance, but she grins demurely as he swipes his thumb along her wound with a furrowed brow. Her digits worm their way and hang around massive wrists, reassuring him with woven words that sound right together. Neat, fitted into their designed slots. It holds structure where elsewhere is only disarray.

Her voice dips into a lower register, vibrating through her chest as she points her hand in Santana's direction. The priestess refuses to close her eyes, meeting his curious gaze from her slumped position with the hound standing sentry to her body that resists any sort of movement. Sometimes her mother had called her a rock with a fond smile, brushing hair from her eyes and leaving her to her daydreams. At the very beginning she would raise a hand in the air and concentrate until it all faded around her, wisps of colour slithering between her fingers and the cup of her palm, creating little clouds in the clear skies. Santana would make them dance; a mother and her child, lacking a father but still happy, and a faceless man come to complete the trio. He would take the daughter's hand and lead her in circles, the chime of their laughter sounding loud in her head.

It's been years since she's created her own little world, too caught up in the current one that demands all of her strength and attention.

If she closes her eyes the heartbeat of her necklace sounds true, staccato and off-center from her own. Santana times her breathing to the throb against her breastbone, and doesn't even notice as she falls into troubled memories.

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><p><em>The night air bites angrily at her face where the tears have dampened her skin. As the trees near her own home melt away into large, foreboding shadows, she ducks her head against Agate's powerful neck and wraps her slender arms in his flying mane. She tries to forget everything except the shifting of muscles underneath her thighs but the foreign pulse against her chest throws her. The liquid loss sloshes through the hole in her mind, burning like acid, eating away the threads of her consciousness until she crushes her face into her horse and clutches him so hard she feels like she's pulling out the roots of his hair. <em>

_ Her steed surges west with the light of the moon, his hooves loud and clattering against the stillness. No matter how hard she tries she can't sear the face of her mother from her thoughts, etched with age that she's never seen and eyes so very dark. She'd heard the whispering of the villagers but thought nothing of it. Simply foolish thoughts by privileged brats who have nothing to fear save for missing a precious piece of jewelry or the politics of wealth. Stories of men in colourful uniforms and wooden crosses, raising crosses high and lugging cages after their horses. Prisoners screaming and crying with bloodied hands and bruised faces accused of things that did not belong with sin. _

_ The priestess had only once talked to one of the unfortunate, tending to his wounds as he shook and moaned upon the ground. Her fingers had brushed back his mop of filthy air and bound his flesh tight with sutures and powders, stroking his throat to make him swallow the herbs she tried to feed him. His skin was a canvas of midnight blue as she peeled him down to the bone, broken and splintered and beyond repair. All she could hope was for a night without terrors. _

_ Their brutality is disgusting but nothing new. Stories carried upon the winds of untold horrors for heathens, fuelling the urgency in which the body underneath her soars along the path._

_ Santana flees until the morning creeps upon the horizon, her anger roaring through her alongside with her sorrow, pushing into the amethysts and sending their glow around their forms. Agate is soaked with sweat and his flanks heave, but she finally pushes off from his neck and sits up straight, heel of her hand crushing into her cheeks to wipe away the traces of her crying. With the hood obscuring her face and cloak snapping about her, staff clenched and throbbing, her thighs close around Agate's body and she feels something other than human. Powerful in the most isolated of ways. _

_ Day falls and she slows him to a canter, hands stroking his shivering neck even as her thumb rubs the curve of his ear. He whinnies and rears his discomfort but she shushes him with a gentle few words, easing his bulk into the town that's been presented to her. Its walls rise as high as anything she's ever seen, hiding away the death and poverty that lurks within the dying city. The gates gleam as they slowly stop in front of what could be a magnificent sight, tarnished by war and hunger and the cruelty of men. _

_ Two guards saunter forwards, hands brushing once over the hilt of sabres by their sides. Their eyes are wary as they take in the large hood obscuring the figure's face and the strong staff clutched in one hand. Yet upon further inspection they see the gentle swell of a constrained chest and the way her wrists narrow and flourish, delicate and smooth. They sneer and feel their muscles relax while hers tense even further. _

_ "Do either of you speak Spanish?" she snaps before they can open their mouths, voice hard and unkind. Out in this world she is less than them, less than what she was in her own little town that treated her like something special and worthy of affection. Sometimes she loathes not only their gender, but her own. "Spanish. I have no time nor patience to unravel what you Basque dogs are yammering on about."_

_ Her hands trace his reigns, restless as a newborn ghost, as one of them scowls and shouts something out to the gates. A shuffling from within followed by sleepy muttering as a third in same uniform wanders out into the budding sun. She draws strength from the nubile warmth upon her back, rays hitting the glossy feathers to make them burn a blue-black and cast longer shadows upon her face. Sometimes if she listens hard enough she can hear wingbeats echoing around the cavern of her skull, soothing as the brush of her mother's hand upon her jaw. _

_ They converse briefly until they break off to look at her, the newcomer tilting his head and squinting into the light. "What's your business here?" He's accented and angry but he speaks something she can understand so she pointedly ignores the aggravation in his tone._

_ "I've been riding all night and my horse is exhausted. I need somewhere for him, and preferably me, to sleep until dusk falls."_

_ His eyebrows raise and she curls her lip in repulsion as he lingers upon the front of her robes, top unlaced to let in the cool morning air. It bares her narrow collarbone and the beginnings of her chest, filled from seventeen years of growing but not yet complete. "And what's a pretty lady like you riding out at night? Surely it's a bit dangerous for you."_

_ "What this pretty lady does in her own time is none of your concern. I have money to pay for my place, and I'm not interested in stealing wares like the fine citizens of your upstanding city. If you aren't going to let me in, tell me now so I may take my business elsewhere."_

_ The air crackles with tension as their gazes lock angrily, noting the curl of his fist with a spark of unease. Still, his teeth flash in the growing light as he flings his arm back, growling out syllables that sound wrong on his tongue. "Let me see your face."_

_ "What?"_

_ "You heard me. I'm not letting you in until you take off your hood."_

_ Santana contemplates leaving. Her bones ache and her hips will cry vengeance after she slips into sleep, but Agate's sweat is louder than her complaints. She's always had dahlia hands - fragile and soft but capable of untold movement - and they curl themselves over like a spider when she yanks back the hood, letting it spill over her shoulders and ruffle the feathers upon her back._

_ They hiss an intake of air. She doesn't smirk like she wishes to but instead fixes them with a steely glare. _

_ "Go ahead, priestess." It's not the fear mixed with disgust in his tone that makes her flinch, but rather the new title she has no business using that sticks to her body like oil. Santana feels like an imposter, masquerading in an adult's skin with an epithet that is the only thing saving her but somehow is not yet her own. _

_ She nods curtly to them, looking back only once. Her voice is dry and sharp and entirely different. In order to survive, she has to shed the stirrings of compassion her mother instilled and become something else entirely from the ashes of her youth. _

_ "You should be careful, men. The Goddess watches over all earthly things and dislikes harm or scorn coming to her children." A pause and her teeth come out into a foreboding grin. "Consider it a warning."_

* * *

><p>"Santana." The night is being absorbed by her raven hair. Crumpled in the back her form is tiny and thin, weary from the road and lack of constant food. Brittany watches the muscles move in her jaw with a fascination that is not becoming of a person, eyes tracing her body as her fingers flick and twitch in their own little dance.<p>

Her lips create meaningless words that she wishes she could learn, wrapping around her head in a cotton shield, teasing their way into her mind. She tries to form the same syllables as the priestess, clumsily stuttering _venir _and _dejar_ in a way that sounds entirely wrong to her ears. Brittany is so graceful with her movements but ragged with her words because her body always knows what her head doesn't want to hear. This kind of beautiful precision is not meant for her tongue, and it fills her with a longing sadness.

(In another life she would be a dancer. Her body would bend and arch and create her own kind of magic, without the veneer of blood that clings to her conscious.)

"Santana!" She repeats, alarm leaking into her tone as the darker girl begins to thrash lightly, hands reaching out only to draw back away. If she looks from the corner of her eye she spots gathering of blue in her palms, undulating and seething the more she struggles.

People stop to watch as she perches herself on the bench, larger fingers weaving to clasp her wrists. "Wake up, it's just a dream." Brittany hisses nervously as the furrow in Santana's brow deepens, lips popping open to reveal white teeth and a pink tongue.

"No... aléjate de mí," as the warrior's grip increases, Santana's eyes snap open; wild and unfocused with a current so strong it hurts. She looks feral and entirely inhuman. "detener!"

Brittany feels a wave of energy course past her ear and slam into the side opposite them; benches splinter and fly as men shout for cover. When she recovers enough to look behind her, there's a moderate scar carving out the floorboards and empty spaces where two benches used to be, obliterated and scattered out around deck.

Her jaw is loose as she swings back to look at Santana who is holding her hands out in front of her, almost as if never seeing them before. The crackling, seething power she had felt so rapidly has extinguished itself once again, and she finds she can't even come up with a shimmer of what previously soared from her palms, inches from Brittany's head. Swirling dreams, indistinct but uneasy, rebound in the caverns of her skull.

Brittany studies her face and repeats what she had said just before they came up onto deck.

"Yes, I've said I'm fine. I don't need you hovering over me like a lost dog, Brittany." she snaps, clenching her hands tight and folding them over her chest. The necklace on her breastbone throbs almost as if reprimanding her. Amidst the silence in which the men mull about the damage and heft the unbroken paddles from the water, Santana's stomach sounds out its discomfort at not being fed in almost a day. She flushes, but Brittany's giggle is charming and lessens her embarrassment. She seems to have taken no offence to the harsh tone laid out before her, simply rummaging around for a second before producing an uneven hunk of bread, which she then cracks into two and offers both halves to Santana.

A few years ago, her former self would be appalled at the ravenous way she snatches them from the viking's hands and stuffs them into her mouth. The current one simply smacks her upside the head and grumbles at her to be quiet in fewer words.

Blue eyes light up in amusement as Santana almost chokes on the large chunk she's attempted to swallow, pressing her waterskin into tanned hands before the girl can cough it back up. She watches in fascination as her throat muscles shiver, rivulets of liquid escaping the tight suction of her lips when she opens to gasp for air. If she imagines hard enough she can see gills from where her neck fluctuates like the sirens that lure many a virile seaman into their watery graves. Would the same charm work on her? They'd once said that she would simply confuse it into submission and she would be on her merry way, none the wiser - the warrior has yet to deduce if it was a compliment or an insult.

Her father storms angrily back on deck, eyes raking temporarily over the damage before whirling to her daughter. Brittany's grin is sheepish in all the ways he recognizes from her youth, apologetic but mirthful. However, he finds nothing similarly amusing at the hole blown in his ship, nor the uneasy muttering of his sailors.

"What is this, Bretagne?" She's long grown used to his tempers but Santana is not so lucky - she spits up half her mouthful in alarm, and Brittany watches with a frown as her posture immediately hunches into a defensive stance.

"Oh, um, I startled her."

One bushy eyebrow raises high over his head and her face colours a light pink.

"You... startled her." He says slowly, dubiously eyeing Brittany's rapid nodding and the stranger's wary gaze. The staff and markings all point towards a likely story, but... that little thing causing so much turmoil? He's seen the collapsed breastplates from some of the men dim-witted enough to don scale-mail along with the broken weapons and bruised bodies. "Because you startled her... she made a hole in my ship?"

Betar's ship that had seen him through raids and rival bands and irate kings? He thinks not.

"Well, not exactly like that..." Brittany flails for a viable explanation; telling him she can't control her power will get her killed on the spot, lying will get her reprimanded and then still possibly killed on the spot. Betar watches his only daughter (son, whispers his mind) open and close her mouth uselessly, red dusting her fair cheeks.

She had never been good with words, often using her expressive body language to do the talking for her. He's never seen one so elegant with the dance of a sword - every boy she's duelled has landed flat on his ass with a foot on his face. Brittany's had to work so hard to get where she is, but now, he thinks with a grimace, the hardest part is simply beginning. Training and expanding into a formidable warrior was simply child's play; he doubts she'll have as good a time in the difficult world of underhanded politics.

Admittedly, they have far less here than in the organized kingdoms. Simply hearing of their dealings in lavish throne rooms and private quarters makes his head ache.

"- and how would you like it if you were suddenly pushed into a strange land where nobody looked like you and you couldn't talk to them? You'd make holes in things too!" Brittany concludes the rant with an indignant huff, oblivious to Santana's slow, puzzled blink as her eyes flit between the two figures.

He makes a pained noise in the back of his throat, tracing along the curves of her markings before nesting his gaze in the palms of her still trembling hands. As if she knows he's watching her, they curl into small fists and the tremor stills with clenched, white knuckles.

"We can't bring her with us, Brittany. A seiðr-worker is too dangerous to have as your servant. If she was simply a priestess perhaps I could bend the laws..."

For as long as magic had been upon the North, there were many different types that were wielded. The most common and used was the divining of the future, past and present - spae. Often priestesses were connected intimately with the gods for such a purpose, marked at a young age to better understand their gift. They could touch the threads of reality and tease answers from the nothingness, often weaving them into a tapestry to better understand the current which flows through the Earth.

It's been difficult these past years. As more and more turned to the White Christ and what he promised, they became hostile to any type of magic offered into the world. No matter how advantageous it was, they turned it down and reverted back to their murmured praying and strange vows that made no sense (Brittany wondered why they resigned themselves to a life without magic when it was teeming all around them), punctuated by unbridled hatred. Surely, there were good ones just as bad - kind souls more content with their private faith, always accommodating of others. Yet most grew wary of the things they couldn't touch with their own hands, preferring their worn hilts and dented metal to the melodious thrum of energy.

And that was fine, honestly. But it wasn't from spae that magic earned a bad name - no, even most converts turned to the old women to seek out the future in times of great need. It was seiðr; dark, malevolent magic anchored in the roots of the user's soul. The delicate balance of energy that flowed through all living things was able to be warped and twisted for the worker's own, personal use, whether it be to toy with the minds of men or move great physical barriers. The gaping wound in his ship is evidence enough of that.

According to myth, those skilled in the darkest tendrils of seiðr were capable of summoning phantoms and corpses for their bidding. Tales of ancestors rising from the grave, bleached bones chattering noisily in the dead of night brought chills even to the strongest of warriors.

The girl seated in front of him looks nothing but nervous - small and rigid with a regal build to her features, she seems to hold no outwards taint despite her darker skin. Betar has learned not to let prejudice rule. Though he is a thrall, Mikhail has never once steered them wrong.

Brittany must notice his scrutiny, for she turns her widest gaze onto him with clasped fingers. "She's not a seiðr-witch, father! Earlier when we were attacked by one of Sveinn's berserkers-" she stalls for a moment, and that's certainly a discussion for another time, "she was doing this strange chanting and I couldn't feel any of my wounds. Gone! They disappeared like Lord Tubbi's manners when he's had too much mead."

He'll never understand her fascination with that cat.

"Then I got all tingly and I smacked the man with the head of my axe and killed him. It wasn't even a particularly hard blow."

That caught his attention. "She made you strong?"

"I'm plenty strong," she huffs indignantly, toying with the ends of her long braid. "just... stronger. I felt like I could take on a troll."

Betar grins, all shinywhite teeth that glimmer with the moonlight. Santana studies him closely, wonders how his hygiene is kept so nicely if they're as savage as she'd been lead to believe.

"Can she do galdr?" Asks her father curiously, once again eyeing the new arrival. Galdr was the third form of magic, often simply referred to as singing magic. It was less linear than the other two - if magic was linear at all, and he doubts that - and difficult to spot. Even more difficult to resist. Those that knew how were efficient and worthy in their craft; if a raiding band had one proficient in _galdr_ to aid them, it's said they've been known to engage in godly feats of strength and endurance with the enchanted voice coaxing them onwards.

Brittany shrugs and turns to the priestess. Instantly, the deep brown of her eyes narrow in on his daughter sharply. The move isn't alarming, simply focused and alert. She watches the girl-warrior like none of the others do, with an attentiveness and open intrigue that pangs bitterly against his chest. He's already coming to like her never having spoken a single word to the foreigner. "I don't know. I think so."

She pauses, and he almost sees the wheels spin as her fair brows furrow into a small frown. Santana, for her part, keeps silent, one hand buried absently in her hound's fur that has finally gone down. "Oh, I have the best idea!" Brittany suddenly yelps, sending the prophetess skyward. She grins apologetically but turns to him with a shimmering smile.

"She can be my skald, father! I know the boring old men don't like magic, but everybody likes song! Just look at her, I'm sure she has a lovely voice - her speaking voice is so nice, all low and smooth and it doesn't crack like mine does sometimes... do you think it's even capable of breaking like that? Mikhail's voice hasn't done that either. Is it simply a Northmen issue?"

Betar opens and closes his mouth once, unsure of how to respond. "Can you get her to sing?"

The shield-maiden shrugs again, looking over once more at her companion. They lock eyes and something goes unsaid between the connection. "I could ask her."

His eyebrows rise to his forehead. "You can speak with her?"

"Somewhat. It's easy."

Her hands spiderweb in the air momentarily, palms splayed towards Santana before curling her fingers and pointing at her. Santana nods slightly, brow furrowing. She then points to her throat, pulling out several notes that sound rusty and unused, but not too far out of key before pointing back at the concentrating priestess.

Dark lips open in return and a low, crooning sound spills out from behind her teeth; rich and dark and holding just the right amount of secrets. She spins a few strange words upon her tongue before letting them fade out, smirk pulling at her mouth at Brittany's ecstatic expression.

Yet the blonde dampens her countenance, gesturing to the ruined benches of the ship. Her head tilts momentarily before cupping her palms almost as if gathering air, pressing her hands to the skin of her throat and then repeating the notes. As she does, she gesticulates wildly with her fingers twisting in the air, pulling a snort from her father that's met with an annoyed look.

Santana simply smiles, centering herself for a moment before opening her mouth once again to sing. Yet this time the sound is different - haunting, clear as any bell that seeps through his skin. Though the tone is unbearably sad, a sudden weariness grips his massive muscles and he sways on the spot. Several of the men around them stumble and grip onto the sides of the ship, palms grinding into their eyes, dazed and disoriented. Brittany's head falls forward, eyes drooping closed, before Santana swallows the melody and lightly taps Brittany's jaw with a grin. She startles upright, sheepishly returning the smile before turning her expectant eyes to her father.

"Well? Does that answer your question?"

Once he shakes off the way her voice seems to cling to him, Betar nods. "It does indeed. She has a lovely voice. With our luck she can play an instrument, wouldn't that be nice? I'm tired of Agnir keeping the lyre away from those who'd like to use it."

She scowls petulantly at him, knowing he's avoiding giving an answer. He sighs at how easily he falls to her charms.

"Fine, Bretagne, if you're that adamant about it. I'm sure another voice in the town couldn't hurt." Brittany squeals and positively _dances_ in her seat, turning to Santana with a beaming grin and the brightest eyes either of them have ever seen. Though she has no clue the gist of the conversation, the elation on the blonde's face is enough to make her own expression crumple into wary warmth.

Brittany thinks she's gorgeous when she smiles (but everything about Santana is gorgeous).

"You're going to receive some heated words from the boys in town, however," he muses, stroking his large beard, "a pretty thing like her won't go unnoticed, dark or not. Are you going to collar her?"

"No!" Her vehemence is startling. "That's cruel. I don't want to do that! She's free to wander as she pleases, even though she's my skald. I've been dealing with _boys_ my whole life, too. Nothing their light headed selves can say will change my mind."

He feels a flush of pride, scalding as the sun. "They're going to dislike that she's a priestess, you know."

"It's not like I really listen to anything they say. They think I'm a girl, so my opinions shouldn't count."

"Aren't you?"

"Well, yes. I think I'd notice if I suddenly became a boy one day in my sleep. That would be scary and kind of gross - they're nice to look at, but usually aren't even as smart as me." The _and that's saying quite a lot_ rests unspoken between them.

She trails off for a moment, gazing out into the night and tracing countless constellations. For a moment she wonders if she peers hard enough, could she see the God that all the Christians are on about, lurking about up in the stars? It seems so strange to have one man ruling over everything, not split into several different gods and goddesses. Where does he find all the time to do these things?

"But I'm a warrior," she says quietly, turning back to face him, "and they can't stop me. I want Santana to be my friend and that's what she's going to be."

* * *

><p>Dawn breaks over the horizon in a plethora of pinks and yellows, first tendrils of the gaping sun clawing its way through the sky. Below, the ship is quiet, most warriors splayed and slumbering after a night of heavy mead and violent looting. If one listens close enough, you can hear the rattle of chains and moans of the taken.<p>

They're strung to the sides like dogs, heads down and beaten through the gentle rolling of the waves. Santana knows not why she's not one of them down there, cowering at every figure to pass. Out from the corner of her eye she spots Brittany's sleeping figure and understands that she's to blame.

Not that she's complaining. Her wrists are rather pleased to be bare.

After the strange conversation with the large man (they're all large, however) she finds she can't fall back into dreams, still shaken from the rush of energy that had swept through her and splintered part of the starboard side. It's never been like this, roiling and seething inside of her to the point where she can't control the bursts. She figures it's a mix of pure terror and the lack of her mother's calming presence to ground her, whispering soothing words to the growing tide within that stems the flow and lets her grasp reality once again. Despite daydreams of being powerful, the priestess finds she doesn't like this volatile energy - it feels too far from the path of the Goddess. Angry, dark without the light of the moon.

Santana leans near the figurehead, eyeing the large wooden raven cautiously but not backing down. Simply a figment of her imagination, a fluke in her delirious state.

(Her mother taught her to never ignore omens, but she's not here. She's not allowed to dictate anymore.)

Her staff is comforting in the palm of her hand even as her curious gaze is drawn to the taller figure splayed out on one of the benches, long legs dangling over the side along with an arm. The other is flung haphazardly over her eyes, blonde hair scattered over the wood as her rose petal lips open gently to pull in the crisp northern air; soft puffs of steam swirl from her open mouth in chaotic patterns of mist. Brittany's taken off her heavy coat of chainmail to replace it with a long, thick tunic - her fitted leather breaches still hug her lower half in the strangest ways.

Santana traces the swell of her biceps and wonders if this is the norm in the North. Brittany's thick, calloused hands speak of a lifetime doing exactly this, silvery fine scars visible along the small expanses of exposed skin. She shuffles forward, staff tapping, and sits by the unconscious body. Hesitating for only a second, she takes Brittany's dangling appendage in her own softer hands, mapping the skin and uncurling her fingers. Here, the rugged palms are decidedly feminine but still strong, scarred knuckled relaxed and raised from the structure under her skin.

If she concentrates hard enough, digs her thumbs into the flesh under her touch, she can feel Brittany's current rushing through her body. Intertwined with her pulse, the blonde's energy thuds gently throughout her being, coaxing her own to rise and meet. It's so unbearably light like a feather ghosting along her veins, almost blinding with its unsuspecting warmth and strength.

Everywhere she's looked, every person she's healed, there had always been a speckle of darkness within the strands of their being. Humans are naturally cruel creatures, overridden by morality and society's paradoxical need to appear whole and destroy behind closed doors. Yet as she closes her eyes and submerges deeper into the girl's pulse, she finds none of the malevolence that stains itself bright upon your soul when it's deep enough to hurt. There's no doubt she's killed and pillaged before - the tight, deadly jabs of her spear and scrapes along her shield attest to that - yet the purity of her heart is surprisingly intact for such a violent life. Santana's met men that have never laid a single blow upon others, but the slime crawling in their veins had made her want to puke.

It's not to say she's innocent. Nobody who knows the best and fastest way to sever arteries and cripple muscles is anything of the sort. But she finds herself relaxing at the obvious lack of detrimental intent she finds, subconsciously rubbing her thumbs in soothing circles along the red half-moons that have formed in her pale flesh.

Her eyes lever shut and she lets her strength wash over her head and fill her depleted sources, spilling light into the dark remnants of her budding power. Never has she met anybody like Brittany and angrily curses the language barrier - everything they say is lost in translation but still _remains_, hovering just out of reach.

The fingers connected to the palm twitch and Santana lets go guiltily as if struck. It's wrong to go prying into a person's makings simply for selfish curiosity; her mother's reprimanding words ring loudly in her head from the last time she tried. Her eyes glance up to be met with the bleary ocean watching her, confusion muddled into their depths. Yet, there's also a small smile tugging along the corners of her lips. Santana misses the influx of warmth greatly.

"Hvað ert þú að gera?"

"Simply looking." She replies softly, sighing and looking out to the moving sea. Brittany shuffles from her perch until she's lying on her stomach, head cushioned in the crook of her elbow and looking directly at her.

"I'm expected to be here for a long time, aren't I?" She asks without meaning to turn it into a question. All hints point to her becoming a slave for the men on this ship, only kept alone from the blonde's influence. Santana sees the ways they sneer at her (Brittany or herself, she doesn't know), rolling their eyes without acceptance. "They've taken all the able men and the beautiful women, along with a hoard of the younger children. They aren't likely to let me go anytime soon - and to where, if they do? I've nowhere else to run. Travelled through Iberia and straight through the seas until I reached that town, but now I've landed myself right back on another blasted ship full of people I don't understand."

Her gaze turns to Brittany, who is watching her with bright, attentive eyes. "Why did you save me, Brittany? I'm nothing but a dark girl surrounded by white men. I have little to give you besides my voice and my body - as we're the same gender, I can't even give you that. Is that all which matters here? Bloodshed and women. My people always said that you were brutal savages and I do not want to be right - if anything, you seem to be the most adequately groomed of the races. Back home, people stank."

Her nose scrunches up and the shield-maiden grins slightly, seeming to understand her disgust of the subject. "They stank and they cheated and fought like dogs... I miss Mami so much, but I loathe to go back. If they find me..." The priestess trails off in worry, images of men in white robes and wooden crosses flashing to the forefront of her mind. The man she had tried to save, spluttering feebly as the ribs they had beaten in stole his breath until he grew deathly pale and slipped away. It scared her. Scared her right down to her brittle bones.

It is then she knows she can't go back. Not until the dust settles and the cities claim their master. Her home would forever be upon the plains of Iberia, but perhaps her heart could be somewhere else. The North is beautiful in its own way. The fjords she stumbled upon, hot and dirty and tired, took away her pains when she drank from the glassy, freezing surfaces.

"Teach me." She demands suddenly, earning a flicker of confusion from the girl opposite her. Santana yearns to understand all the world has to offer her - while she knows infinity is beyond her grasp, perhaps something close can be achieved. "Teach me your language. If I'm to be here for an undisclosed amount of time, I need to learn how to rebuke the oafish men who undoubtedly wish to take me for better or worse."

Brittany has perked up, studying the slope of her jaw and the draw of her brows, but remains silent with puzzlement. Santana hesitates - it's all so much different when she's awake - but takes the larger hand once again, turning it over until she cradles the smooth, milky back.

"Wrist." She says, pinching her fingers around her joint. "Palm." Her touch grazes along the length, making the girl giggle. "Fingers." Each digit is slowly grasped with her own. They've locked eyes now, attempting to convey what her meaningless words cannot. "Thumb." That piece is tugged lightly. In the end, she takes her whole hand and curls it, fingers tucking instinctively and neatly until her knuckles strain from the skin. "Fist."

The blonde sits up, leather groaning on her legs, before taking Santana's own hand - it's panic inducing when she does it without warning, all warm and soft with too much trust, and feels herself drawing away before she's held firmly with long fingers completely engulfing her wrist. Brittany shakes her head when she tries to tug her hand from the strong grasp, eyes unusually serious. "Þú skalt ekki leyfi."

Even without knowing the language her tone is as clear as day.

_Don't go._

Santana swallows down wave after wave of alarm and stills the way her skin goes clammy as Brittany turns her hand in the exact same manner she had done. "Úlnliður." She says, lightly shaking her clasped wrist with a small smile. The ease on her face is soothing the hurricane that's begun to form within her chest. "Lófa." Her fingers walk up to Santana's palm and dance upon the lines there, worn and soft. She smiles shakily and receives a grin in return. Then, they skate up to her fingers, tapping each nail gently. "Fingur." Finally her hand closes, much more clumsy than Brittany's had. "Hnefi."

Her tongue is leaden and stumbles along the pronunciation, but the blonde helps her until she can haltingly trip over the strange way they've packed their letters together. Brittany lights up for a moment and her hands reach for her face, asking permission.

It's a lesson of trust as much as language, Santana muses as she studies her companion's expression. Wide open and eager. It's been a long time since she's given that to another person - the ability to look past her barricade - but it never truly worked on the blonde. From the very beginning of the day she's been off balance, off intent, too focused on shoving away the massive men with angry swords to notice how Brittany's been creeping up, silent as a ghost and just as frightening.

But still she nods, hesitant and nervous, and keeps her eyes open the whole time Brittany's fingers sweep over her eyebrows and cheekbones, mapping out the length of her nose and the delicate bones of her jaw.

They sit there, together, until Santana is able to pronounce her first word without pausing. Brosa.

_Smile._

* * *

><p><strong>Translations!<strong>

**No tengo ni noción de lo que usted acaba de decir: I have no idea what you just said**

**Ert þú í lagi?: Are you okay?**

**Koma: Come**

**No... aléjate de mí: No... get away from me**

**Detener: Stop**

**Skald: A bard, singing poet.**

**Hvað ert þú að gera?: What are you doing?**

**Þú skalt ekki leyfi: Do not leave**


	4. Chapter 4

[A/N: Hey guys. I'm sorry for keeping you so long, but here it is. I've decided not to go through my beta again because it's been awhile, but here is the next installment. Thank you so much for all your kind reviews - I see most of you creeping where you think I'm not looking. Drop by and tell me what you think!

I'm currently in the process of updating things, so you'll undoubtedly see some changes in a little while.

Big shout out to my wonderful friend Taka. Without his tireless patience and constant help to my ideas, a lot of this wouldn't be even close to possible.]

Chapter 4

**And I'm alone now**

**Me and all I stood for, we're wandering now**

**April 6th, 912**

* * *

><p>Brittany is called away and Santana roams the best she can trapped upon the large vessel. Rows upon rows of large, burly men strain at the oars, kept in time by the rhythmic roaring of the man perched at the front. From the corner of her eye, the figurehead's hair streams.<p>

She shivers and tightens her cloak about her shoulders.

Upon the gleaming surface of a hung shield, she shakes a little bit of the red ochre into her palm, tipping Brittany's waterskin into the powder to form it to a paste. Santana swallows back the knot in her throat as she carefully swipes her fingers along her skin - if she concentrates hard enough, her Mami's hands touch her face, gentle and attentive. A new mark is complete along her forehead. Though wet, it feels more natural than the first time. Small blessings.

Without the blonde to keep her company Santana is hyper-aware of the stares she's receiving. They blink sweat from their eyes and turn to her with curious glances, grunting and heaving, their breathing a crescendo of noise heard even above the now choppy sea. It hasn't yet descended into fury, knocking the ship about with its massive hands, but she stumbles once and decides to make her way below deck.

It is darker here, damp and dirty that smells of blood and excrement. Her nose wrinkles of its own accord and she hikes up her robes, whispering a quiet word and watching in wonderment as the amethysts cast a soft glow upon the walls. Something akin to fire seems to dance within their depths. She cautiously descends into the belly, ears pricking at the moans of the taken that reach her ears. They cry out in a way that she needs no translation for. All join into a syncopated rattle that ebbs and flows as the sea, punctuated only by the viking's heavy footfalls or the odd yell of pain.

Into the gloom her staff raises and the murmur quiets, heads swinging to face her; dirty, worn and scared, they take no comfort from her light. Instead hands fasten at her ankles, drawing her further and further in, sobbing in their own language, begging her to save them. Corpses pulling to the grave.

Amidst the haggard faces she spots a shock of blond hair. The boy sits, hunched, over a figure gasping and twitching in his lap. Santana recognizes the kind hands and rushes to meet them, wood tapping on the flooring and alerting him to her presence.

"Völva!" He cries desperately with one bony hand reaching for her. She strides over and drops to her knees with a thump. Almost too late she shuffles back to avoid the drip of blood still leaking from the wound, beads slithering from the open seal of her lips. "Hjálpa henni, ég er betl þig!" His tone carries no faults and she takes the mother's clammy head in her hands, cradling and brushing away strands of hair that stick to her skin.

Santana remains in the dark on how she even got into the ship, bleeding and sputtering as she is. Perhaps the boy refused to let go of what will soon become a corpse, screaming and crying until they deemed it easier to bring her along. Slightly shaking fingers reach for the woman's robes, drawing back only to yank the small knife out from her belt - with tender care does she tear the fabric, peeling back to expose the wound. She is face-down in Santana's lap; barely breathing, her exhales warm the mystic's ankles.

As more of the fabric is taken away, slaves cluster in, ever eager to see the failure of others. Santana pulls the medicine horn from behind her belt and hastily shakes the contents free. Herbs are a comforting familiarity in a situation spun far out of control. Her fingers caress the dried roots and flowers, searching. Purple catches her eye. With a low hum of triumph she pulls the stems of a long, furry plant, cramming it into the small mortar always kept with her ("You never know when the herbs will speak, Santana. Always be prepared.") and grinding viciously with the end of the knife. They watch her work as she adds dribbles of water until it becomes a thick paste, pungent and moist, swirling dark green into her bowl. She chances a glance up and almost shrieks at all the faces peering back at her.

"Bandages. Do any of you have bandages?" Santana mimes wrapping the wound with her eyebrows arched high on her head. A beat or two with nothing but the wailing of a babe. "Of course you don't. Why would my job be simple?"

Instead she gently uncurls her legs, shushing the boy when he reaches for her again - her knife runs through her slip with a loud tear and exposes her legs to the thick wool of her robes. She grimaces, dumping the contents of her bowl into the now flat fabric. Around her, the amethysts glow.

Upon closer inspection, the gash along the mother's back is deep and weeping but has not severed anything of vital importance. Santana remembers the man she hadn't been able to save, brutalized and blue from beatings, gasping in futile resistance to the lungs that denied him life. Her ear perches upon her shoulderblades and the beat of her heart is of a hummingbird; so faint she has to strain to listen, flitting nervously within her ribcage. Yet, no rattling sighs that dictate the end of her days.

With utmost care (she feels almost as if tending to the wounds of her own children, the skin underneath her fingers familiar in the strangest ways) she rolls the woman back to face the ceiling. Santana loops the bandage around her in a sling and her eyes roll around her head in silent nightmares.

Mayhaps she's dreaming of the grave? Ataecina will welcome her if she so chooses to cross.

The knot fits snugly underneath her breasts and presses the cool knitbone directly to the wound. If she survives the injury there will be repercussions, as there are with all people who cheat their reaping. Her muscle is ruined, torn and severed, shredded from the clumsy withdrawal of the weapon. Without threads of the outside world there is scarce little she can do, but connects her eyes all the same with the boy and is floored by the gratitude within.

A breeze ruffles her hair - the smell of sweetgrass wraps around her flesh and she bends without thinking, firm lips coming to press upon the mother's feverish head. Something curls around her skeleton with invisible arms and guides her jaw without consent to form syllables from the exhale of her breath.

"Þú ert enn þörf hér, lítið einn."

The words are strange but feel right on her tongue. Ethereal and overlapping; the boy inhales sharply as her world spins temporarily out of focus. (She has the distinct feeling of a smile upon her skin and the pride of a mother, consuming and warm.) Santana knows not what she says but finds it bothers her little, content to let Her guide healing hands to those who require. Around her, the slaves murmur within themselves, reaching out to touch but backing away.

For the first time since leaving Botaya, Santana feels with direction. It is difficult but rewarding as she smiles with the taste of the Goddess still on her lips.

* * *

><p>Brittany finds her there, huddled in the dark, soothing her hands along the bodies of the wounded and murmuring strange words into their ears. She is unmoving despite the rocking the ship throws under her feet, breathing measured and deep. Almost asleep. If they peer hard enough into the shadows, flickers of blue rise from the shine of her eyes.<p>

The slave duck to her, twisting her hair between their fingers, whispering praise and awe into the soft shell of her ears. They are a sea, undulating around her, winding to and fro in an attempt to snag even a hint of her presence. Santana opens her hands and lets their own fingers trail along her palms. Their skin is rough and cracked from hard winters spent wielding their hoes and scythes, frozen smiles warmed under the deck. She is not herself - no, something _else_, something that doesn't mind their presence, so lost in the gentle ebb and flow that thrums through her as she tries to heal.

Brittany approaches her slowly with curiosity in her gaze. Santana's mouth is slightly open but now soundless, eyes unfocused. If she were to touch, she's sure the swoop of her mark would throb under her fingertips.

"Santana?" Her eyes shift towards the blonde, flashing deep every so often to retreat back. There is another thing in the room with them, thickening the air they breathe and brushing a soft hand against her cheekbone. Brittany startles and brings her own fingers to her tingling skin. All the slaves turn to the sound of her voice, cringing back at the weapons fastened to her belt, whimpering and moaning to disrupt the calm atmosphere. Santana blinks once, twice; the haze leaks out of her eyes and she shakes her head slowly. Dazed.

"¿Qué pasó?" She mumbles but jerks away as they reach for her again, nose wrinkling in distaste. "Apearse." The snap in her voice is confused and faint but she slides out of the hovel, getting up on aching knees to briefly meet eyes with Brittany. They regard each other silently - Brittany goes to reach out but the flinch it draws makes her think otherwise, instead gesturing upwards. Santana's fingers curl around her staff and without a glance back she wanders back up into the now glowing sun.

"She is not one of you," Brittany intones, locking eyes with each of the soon-to-be slaves, "and you aren't to touch her like that. It's not yet your place." She dislikes being mean but knows better than to argue. If they don't know their place, complications will arise.

(She remembers flesh against metal and a horrific scream inside her ears.)

They bow their heads and she ignores the ones that curl their lips. They will learn.

Her footsteps draw her closer to the boy huddled around his mother. His fingers trace the bandage Santana must have bound around her torso and he doesn't look up until her booted feet enter his line of sight. The pungent smell wafts about them and attempts to mask the other scents of the slaves; Brittany still tastes the faint tang of blood upon the wind.

"She'll live," says the warrior quietly, watching the mother's pale face, "the priestess won't let her die."

His mop of blond hair rustles as he peers up at her through his bangs - she's startled but not surprised at the intensity of his glare. "The priestess wouldn't have to do anything if you didn't attack in the first place."

Her shoulders roll into a stiff shrug and his eyes are drawn to the spear strapped along her back. The tip is cleaned of stale blood but they both remember the metal that gleamed red in the lamplight. "We came for the village. That includes the villagers."

Slaves are something Brittany usually wishes not to touch upon. Despite the attitude towards them in her own town, she grimaces when the collars around their necks wear into the skin and the ropes along their wrists chap and dry them. She knew she shouldn't be justifying herself to a thrall - hell, she wouldn't be, but the guilt lingers in her chest and only grows worse from the mother's shallow and pained breathing.

A clean death she could live with inflicting. But this crippled, tortured wound is something else entirely (she thinks of Anvindr and his bitterness from having a lame leg that eclipses the good in his life) and regrets yanking out her spear so hastily. Suffering looks poor on any class. If she thinks back to the beginnings of her memory she can recall nights spent cold and hungry while the winters raged on.

"For what it's worth, I don't think they'll separate you." She offers, refusing to apologize like her fibers ache to. Perhaps in another time where anger over mistakes isn't so fresh.

"I don't want your pity." He snaps, eyes glittering. Brittany feels a spike of indignation. "I shouldn't expect anything from somebody like you." _Savage_ lingers unbidden in the air, but before she can unclench her jaw to reprimand him, a large boot pins his torso to the side of the ship. It jostles the wounded mother and her cry is horrible - high and keening and punctuated with too much agony.

A larger man glares down at the boy, beard obscuring his face. Under his gaze the blond seems to melt, shrinking down against the wall and coughing as the toes find their way against his throat. "Wha' was that, thrall?" He threatens. "Did I hear ya talkin' down to Piersson over here?" Upon closer inspection she recognizes Sveinn for his blindingly light hair and inviting eyes shrouded under a veneer of anger.

"N-no..." he attempts to squirm away but that just makes the pressure increase and leave dirty marks in his already ragged shirt. "I think you're lyin'.

Brittany bites her lip and remembers Mikhail, sprawled and vulnerable, stripes of red blossoming over the dark expanse of his bare back. Perhaps a bit older than he was, the warrior still remembers his terrified expression.

"Sveinn, it's alright," she sighs, eyes cutting to the cowering boy, "I'm sure he's learned his lesson."

Tension runs thick for a moment (she misses the unseen presence that lingers around Santana like a comforting shroud) before the older man huffs and moves his hands away from his belt. His large boot hits the ground with a heavy thud and throws one last glare in the blond's general direction. "Let it be a lesson to all of ya!" He grumbles angrily, turning to leave. "Piersson could slit yer throat in a second if she wanted to. Never seen myself any faster hands." Her cue to follow, Brittany hurries after him as he stomps up into the daylight.

It stings her eyes and she squints for a moment, noting the cresting waves sloshing over the deck and soaking the soldier's feet. She has to grin at Santana standing on a bench trying to both keep her balance and her robes mercifully dry.

"Ya can't let them walk over ya, Bretagne. Ya can't play nice until they learn their place."

Her brows furrow into a hard line. This is too reminiscent of the countless conversations she would have with her father, giving little bits of bread to the short-haired and collared children upon the streets that look too thin for her to pass up. Their eyes are too big for their heads and she wonders why they aren't taken care of like Mikhail was (still is).

"They're people too," she mutters weakly, shuffling awkwardly on the spot. His eyebrows raise incredulously - they all know she's far too kind-hearted for her own good - and he glances at the darkness below deck. "and I speared his mother. He's allowed to be angry."

Sveinn admits bad luck for Brittany being the one to inflict such a wound, but he simply shakes his head. "They're still below ya. They need to remember than or else they'll start bein' ungrateful."

"Ungrateful for what?" She blinks slowly - aren't they taking away their freedom? She'd always taken it as a given that the slaves were to be respectful and quiet because that's just simply the way things _are_ there. Yeomen are above thralls and jarls are above all.

Sometimes thralls are freed and become yeomen. It confuses her - even though they were technically equal, the freedmen were still looked down upon as less than a born one. Perhaps she could convince Betar to give Mikhail his own freedom? The boy has served them so very well.

"For lettin' them live, of course!" He slings one massive arm around her slim shoulders, and it's only her tight musculature that stops the blonde staggering forward under the weight. "We coulda just killed 'em all like them berserkers wanted. Crazy boys, I tell ya. Betar said there was somethin' you needed to tell me about them?"

Her fingers ghost along the diagonal gash on her jaw, running just under her lip to stop near the hinge under the soft skin of her chin. Yet another scar to add to the collection of her canvas. "Yes, um. Me and Santana ran into one when we were trying to leave Aarhus." He clues in to the way that she keeps touching her face and sighs.

"The bloodlust got to him, didn't it?"

Brittany nods absently. Her shoulder aches in remembrance of blocking the brutal swing with her shield. "I had to kill him."

Sveinn stalls and pulls away to look at her - studies the lean muscles under her skin and the chapped pads of her fingers. She fidgets under his gaze as his eyes sweep down and linger on her firm biceps. "Ya killed him?" He's quiet now, searching. Brittany nods and averts her vision. "How?"

"I hit him."

"Obviously. How did ya hit him?"

"I..." she trails off and flails for an explanation. Galdr is a tricky card to play; too little and it's worthless, too much and it's dangerous. They stand on treacherous ground as it is.

A yelp sounds as they hit a high wave and Santana flails from her perch, arms windmilling in a desperate attempt to keep herself standing. Brittany darts forward without thinking and presses her palms flat against the arch of the mystic's spine, other hand nestling in the dip of her shoulderblades to keep her upright. Her warmth seeps through from the fabric - the blonde swallows nervously when she feels the tense muscles bunch under her touch.

The motion passes and the ship regains flat bearings. Brittany doesn't let go of Santana so much as she flies away from her hold, wheeling to witness her cheery expression. "You okay? That was quite a-"

Two hands find her collar and shove, sending the taller girl stumbling back. She regains her balance relatively quickly and her face masks into incredulity with eyebrows raised high. "_Skíta!_ What are you doing?"

Santana raises her staff threateningly with a scowl. "No me toques." She almost snarls, shoulders hunched and defensive. Anything left of the nervous being that opened her palms to Brittany is long gone.

The tone of her voice rises an instinctive reaction in Brittany, posture lengthening as she takes one large stride forward. "I was just trying to-"

"No me _toques!_" Santana repeats with an angry snap of her staff. The blonde dances away from it with ease but stares at the smaller girl like she's never seen her before - the hurricane eyes that match the shade of her feathers and the thunderous expression upon her face. Her knuckles are white from where she grips too hard.

(This is what the other warriors see. Something prickly and enraged and unable to be advanced upon. Brittany studies the foreign creature's shell for weakness. She finds many, but doesn't know how to begin and destroy it.)

In true Viking culture a hit landed would have demanded swift retribution, and then it would come down to Santana's trust against the pride of her name. Her collar heats at all the eyes watching, studying her next move, wondering whether she will raise her hand against a (slave) lower ranking human for the first time. Brittany swallows once and registers the lack of a soothing presence swirling around the girl; this one is all her own that speaks of moonless nights and jumbled emotions being too far away from home.

"Fine," she murmurs, raising her hands in a placating gesture but not stopping the frown forming between her brows, "have it your way. You can go be mean without me."

The snickers sounding around the deck increase and Brittany feels her cheeks bloom into flame, embarrassment crossing her arms over her chest and sucking her lower lip into her mouth. Something witty and scathing would be ideal, perhaps soothe the burn of her ears, but all she receives is nervous fidgeting from her traitorous hands. Spinning on her heel, she descends back into the gloom, pointedly ignoring various sets of eyes watching her with anything from pity to trepidation.

* * *

><p>Daylight beams down upon her woollen shoulders and Santana raises her face to the sun, eyes closed and murmuring in contentment as the rays play against her skin. Shortly after Brittany had departed in a flurry of angry tunics and pained eyes she had retreated to the figurehead, perching herself upon the maiden's ample rear and draping her body along the length of the wooden back. It has soaked the warmth and lethargy quickly runs through her being, face mashed between her shoulderblades as her eyes lazily close with her hound's protection hovering comfortingly by her dangling feet.<p>

Everything has been flipped over in such a short amount of time and Santana finds herself unable to sleep despite being exhausted. What of her now? They sail to places unknown - she wonders if they're close, the frenzy of warriors rushing in and out has increased tenfold - for purposes she deduces to be less than friendly. All the men and women beneath her will be given- no, not given. Given implies willingly moving into the care of another. No, they will be _sold_ to men with braids in their hair and swords on their hips, clamouring and roaring for their flesh they will no doubt abuse. The human race as a whole tends to irritate Santana to no end, but some of these people don't deserve to be ravaged like the animals they all pretend not to be.

She rubs one hand against her face and groans low in her chest, pressing her cheek harder against the wood and tasting the stain of salt along her tongue. Her thighs tighten upon the figurehead when the ship bucks viciously, spray raining against her skin. She's long since given up on keeping dry.

Even if she holds no chains upon her wrists, Santana has no allusions as to what her standing here shall be. Several of them have already begun to eye her with more than a curious expression. Hungry, almost. Wolfish. It's only been Brittany's constant presence that's kept them at bay.

Brittany.

Santana huffs out an exhale of air and opens one eye thoughtfully, biting the tender inside of her cheek, feeling the pain ground her. Kindness means little when it can be taken away a second later. Not for the first time she curses the language barrier until it's cowering at her feet - what she would give to have a solid conversation with the blonde. Mayhaps also to clear the misunderstandings that scar the air they breathe; Santana still sees the hurt, embarrassed expression in her mind when she had nimbly darted away from the blow.

Who is she to be hurt? The warrior obviously has no concept of personal space. It's why her heart hammers in her ears whenever the other girl gets close with that cheery smile and guileless eyes. Santana is allowed to trust _nobody_ in this strange land - Brittany must realize this includes tall girls with a penchant for rescuing dark skinned foreigners.

Still, as she catches her unmistakable form from the corner of her vision, she sees the frown that quite obviously perches between her brows. Santana's lips tug downwards into something resembling a scowl but holds none of that usual kick.

As if sensing her distress, a cold nose nudges softly against her ankle. Santana smiles and dips down to scratch behind her dog's small, pointed ears. He speaks happily to her, rolling grumbles pouring out of his parted jaws. "You need a name, don't you?" His muzzle twitches slightly, head tilting back to look at her.

"Fausto? I'm pretty lucky to have you." He doesn't make a sound, but the mantle fits wrong over his shoulders. "Lalo? Maybe Sabas?"

She grumbles in annoyance and buries her fingers in his short coat, stroking her thumbs along his jaw. The dog's ears tilt forward and when he raises his chin almost as if to howl, she smiles.

"Sandalio?" He looks at her for a split second before snuffling his face into her palm. "Yes, that seems to work. You can certainly be a true wolf if you try." They almost seem to grin at each other for a moment, her eyes creasing along the edges, but an awkwardly cleared throat brings her back to reality.

Santana glances up sharply and shuffles herself to face the intruder. Now that she straddles the lower back of the maiden she can see the lanky boy that interrupted her time. Judging from the way his eyes flit between her and the dog, he honestly believes she had been talking to him but a moment ago.

Superstitions are sometimes more fun than she can handle.

"What do you want, you lanky imbecile? You waste precious air with how long you breathe in my vicinity." His vision squints and the shock of black hair onto of his head rustles - she vaguely thinks it a bird's nest, plastered down from his helmet with sweat and gravity. Upon reflection she's seen him upon the decks several times. When on duty of the oars he irritates his bench-mate by prodding bony elbows into their sides. Despite his awkward standing he seems to be of some importance, never shoved out the way like some of the younger, lesser men seem to be. Sun licks along his pale skin in a way that will undoubtedly leave a burn. The length of his body should be intimidating but his obvious incompetent in his own skin simply leaves her with a vague irritation. One that grows by the minute.

"Völva." He says respectfully and perhaps a bit warily, bowing slightly but still eyeing the dog. Santana rolls her eyes and crosses her legs, one over the other, raising a sharp eyebrow at him when he stumbles on his introduction. "Mitt nafn er Finngeirr."

"Yes? And why do you interrupt me?"

He stares blankly for a moment so she simply sighs. "_What?_"

That gets the tone across. He jumps and points wildly towards the sea, as if his grand gestures will help make up for his lack in upper departments (and perhaps lower, she wouldn't be surprised). If she looks hard enough she spies green rising up out of the depths, coupled with a rocky beach and mountains looming just behind. The murmur of voices is excited and swelling around her as they all look out longingly towards the speck in front of them, swatting seabirds from around their heads. In the obscurity she thinks she spies a port.

There's no doubt when the ship angles itself towards the now growing horizon that that is their destination. Santana swallows thickly and eyes the bustling vikings, shouting and jostling each other boisterously. Sandalio senses her distress and presses, comforting, against her thigh.

"Við erum skipakví fljótlega. Þú ættir ekki að ganga um eins og þetta án kraga."

Both of Santana's eyebrows raise now as she swivels her stare in Finngeirr's direction, only to see he's holding out a simple leather collar with a metal tag threaded into the front. His eyes are expectant, like he wants her to take it, so she instantly curls back and bares her teeth in a defensive growl. "I'm not wearing it."

"Taktu það. Það verður auð það. Það verður auð það. Það verður auðveldara."

"I said no."

She can see he's growing exasperated - the hunch of his shoulders and crinkle of his brow betrays him. Perhaps being a slave to an able warrior she'd be able to swallow, but she'd sooner light her hair with one of the burning torches than serve this insufferable git. "Bara setja hana á-"

"Hvað ert þú að reyna að gera?" Brittany's voice slices through the mounting tension with palpable force. She strides quickly over to where they're standing, eyes raking briefly over Santana's form before spying what Finngeirr has in his outstretched hand. Almost instantly, her expression darkens.

They begin a rapid barrage of Norse that she can't even try to follow, head bouncing from one person to another as they argue. Despite his size advantage Brittany seems to be winning, cheeks ruddy from the exertion of cementing herself into the conversation. Her words are airy but secure in their sentencing as each syllable is snapped into place with purpose, eyes narrowing with the occasional gesture of her long fingers. There's something there that the mystic can't place, an underlying current of earlier conflict that makes their words all that much sharper. Betar watches warily from his position up front. Santana shifts uncomfortably on the spot.

This is twice that Brittany's rescued her in a span of a few hours. It has to stop.

Eventually she pushes the collar back to his chest and he storms off angrily, grumbling something acidic. Sandalio rumbles after his retreating form.

"Thanks." Santana offers, folding her arms across her chest protectively. Her early bubble of lazy contentment has been shattered both by his bumbling contribution and the proximity of the blonde - still no personal space - that eyes her with an unreadable expression. Instead of acknowledging her words she rummages around on her belt before coming up with her handaxe. The priestess shuffles backwards, alarmed, but the viking shakes her head and holds out the object.

Now she can take the time to admire the craftsmanship within the weapon and the gleaming edge of the head. She has no doubt many have fallen by the chips and nicks in the surface. From the reflection she can see her own face - hair wild, eyes narrowed and inquisitive. Confused.

"Axe?" She says more as a question, raising an eyebrow when Brittany shakes the weapon again in front of her vision. Santana scours her memory for any hint of a name that would linger in the corners of her brain, lurking for exactly a purpose like this one. Sun beats down upon her shoulders and she looks to the sea like she will find her answers hidden in the deep. Instead all she finds is cold, churning water stained a murky blue that borders on grey. (A part of her whispers there must be countless bodies buried within those oceans.)

Under the warrior's unwavering stare she slowly sucks one lip into her mouth, chewing through the chapped skin. Blood blooms in a copper tang against her tongue but she ignores the sting and wanders back through her memory to when they were curled against the deck, picking up random objects to learn.

"Is it... öxin?"

Brittany gives the smallest of smiles that feels like second chances, and she smiles tentatively in return.

* * *

><p>They dock with an excited roar and the rousing cheers from the land.<p>

Mountains tower over the beach that is dotted with piers. As the rock is replaced with grass do the houses start, close to the water, puffing up thin plumes of smoke into the blinding spring sky. By the ships is a constant stream of men coming and going of all skin colours. They shout and bark at one another, trading boxes and bags for livestock and coins. In the near distance is the telltale rattle of chains - moments later thin beings stumble forth, blinking harshly from their first taste of the sun in what could be much too long. Under Santana's own feet do the moans increase along with the clanging of metal, foul odour spilling outwards as the captives are ushered forth on wavering legs.

Santana slips into standing and keeps to the edges of the ship. All around her the natural and artificial sea rages on in a torrent of white noise. Vikings begin to unload their possessions, jumping down to land to greet their wives with filthy kisses and large grins. She blanches. Their behaviour is unkempt at best, savage at worst.

Brittany is nowhere in sight but Betar beckons her forward with his large paw of a hand. He stands strong against the raging current. Santana barely hesitates before fighting her way towards him, shoulders curled, eyes narrowed as she sidesteps a rather large barrel being rolled across the deck. His lips twist up into a wry smile as her form is dwarfed alongside his companions - several stumble when her staff retracts from the fleshy crook of their knees, but she is gone long before they can whirl and accuse her. Underneath them, the sea whispers.

He leads her downwards, off to the docks where she pitches forward without the rocking of the vessel to steady her.

From the ground it's even more magnificent. They've slipped between the mouth of two banks to emerge in a wider channel where docks line the shores and seabirds scream overhead. Santana's mouth waters as the scent of cooking meat slips up through her nose from where women with smock-like skirts hunch over the flames, bright beads dangling from their necks as they prod the orange heat. Brooches fasten together the wide openings of their tops - the younger girls choose to let them open and smile slyly at many a warrior that passes by.

Others barter at the stalls presented along the shoreline, woven baskets pressed against their hips as flashes of coin are exchanged between hands. Children mill about their mothers, clutching onto their skirts or screeching playfully in the freezing shallows. The air hums with energy and she can't help but bounce on the spot, hands clenching and relaxing to feel the slither of air cup into her palms and flow through her as natural as any movement. Some linger on her with varying degrees of curiosity - those with the hammers strung about their necks greet her with respect, but others claw into the ward-evil sign and slink away.

It doesn't even bother her anymore.

Betar's presence fills up the space beside her and she turns her face to him, eyebrows furrowing as she glances along the various faces presented to her. "Betar?" He startles at his name coming from her lips but looks down upon the small girl inquiringly.

"The women. Why are they wearing scarves around their heads?" She gestures to the older women who almost all have some sort of head covering. Only the younger ones - and by younger she means children, infants to adolescents with little to worry for - let their hair spill out onto their shoulders. Various shimmering arrays of blond and crimson greet her eyes.

The large man furrows his brow but taps his head and then points to the ring finger of his left hand, where a golden corkscrew band sits upon his skin, another hammer centered on the bottom. "Þeir eru gift." He says, and as she squints, each hidden head sports a ring upon their hand.

(Brittany's hair is as free as her finger.)

A swelling troupe of men swarm upon their docked ships and hum their greetings in their gravelly tongue, clasping Betar by the shoulders and shaking him. In turn his expression falls into a crinkled smile with bright teeth, shaking braids of copper from his face. They speak of the hunt simply by the gestures they produce. He mimes a spear, thrusting upwards before slamming down to the howls of laughter it produces.

She has flipped her cloak up above her face. Feathers brush the strength of her jaw but she simply casts away the rivulets of sweat that begin to dot her brow from the unrelenting beaming sun, absent-minded as she touches the flask at her hip, staff heavy in her hands and feet heavier still - despite the thrumming energy that fills her with such a sense of joy she is tired, worn from the heat and anxiety eating away to her bones. It is spring. Things bloom into life but the unusual warmth of the day catches her by unpleasant surprise. All around her the people are wiping at their faces, but they look content - browsing wares and the slaves that have just been pulled above deck.

They are led away, stumbling, as confused as a newborn babe into the bustle. She moves towards the little boy with his arms burdened with his pale mother but Betar shakes his head and mumbles something she doesn't catch.

A horn sounds and another, larger ship pulls into dock. Its boards are light and deck wide, white masts strung from the top. Men, slender compared to the Norsemen, bustle overtop. Her breath catches.

Iberians.

Her feet are carrying her away before she can rethink her decision. Ducking and weaving, she descends upon the ship. Santana's tongue tingles with anticipation.

Their colours clash in a violent plethora of reds and blues that reflect upon their faces stained with sweat. One notes her coming and hollers to his companions - soon they all peer down from the deck, chattering away with words she can blessedly pick up. Unknowing that her face has split into a wild grin, she plants herself upon the ground and calls up to them.

"'Lo, men! I'd like to speak to one of you, if you so happen to have the time!" They eye the staff and the robe but clamber down regardless with practised ease of a worn sailor.

"We don't, but we'll make some for such a pretty face."

He is tanned and large with smoky coal eyes and a thick jaw. Curly black hair swept into a loose ponytail rests behind his neck and frames his impish grin. When he crosses his arms, his muscles ripple along his shoulders and chest. She smirks.

"You aren't getting anything from this pretty face but questions, sailor. Put away that smile afore my dog seals it himself."

"Very well, miss," he puts up his hands and his eyes shift into something different - not harder but altogether separate, smoke swirling out to be replaced by tenuous sunlight, "I'll do what you ask. What's a priestess doing so far away from the plains?"

The man sees he has hit a sore spot with the way her gaze dampens and angers, brows drawing in and lips thinning. Merely minutes in and he has already welcomed the wrath of gods upon his shoulders. "If it's any of your concern, _boy_," she growls, long and low and warning, "I was driven out by the missionaries. Found my way up just to be captured and brought Goddess knows where. Everybody's been speaking the language I can't for the life of me understand."

His hand draws through his hair and he wrinkles his nose in sympathy, broad chest shifting under his loose shirt. "I wish I could be of help, but I'm afraid I'm just as deaf as you are here." He admits, shrugging up and down. "We're in a place called Kaupang, before you ask. Largest trade town in all of Northvegia, though they call it Nor Veg. It's run by a man called Oleg Bear-Claw, but the one most people look up to and trust is the big guy called Betar Silver-Spear, over there with the red beard." He points to where Betar is watching them with wary eyes, fingers dancing along the hilt of his sword. The sailor frowns.

"Why's he watching over this way? We aren't making no trouble." Santana sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose.

"I was taken onto his ship in that town I'd arrived in yesterday morn. They attacked the tavern where I was sleeping and massacred the place - I'm almost sure I would have have died if Brittany hadn't come to me."

His brow furrows in question.

"Betar's daughter?"

"You mean Bretagne?" Santana scowls and waves a hand in the air with annoyance, rubbing her tongue against the roof of her mouth. All the syllables still stick together to form a mess of jumbled sounds.

The man - boy, she thinks, barely a year older than her with skin still smooth - lights up with a mischievous smile, rubbing his palms together. "She's a piece of work, that one. The only woman warrior rumoured in all of Northvegia. Betar wanted a son but got her instead, so he gave her a male's last name and told the world that she would be able to do all the things men do. They laughed at him, 'course, but she proved them wrong and kicked the old lads right in the behind. Heard she's one of the best spearmen for miles around."

She remembers the tight, fearsome jabs with a spear that looked more like a dance, knees bending over to take the weight as her whole body extends into a fluid lunge. The mystic believes him wholeheartedly.

"I don't care much about that, though. She's a right looker, she is. What I'd do to get under her chainmail." His companions roar in agreement but Santana rolls her eyes, thwacking him in the side with her staff. He winces and shuffles back a few feet much to the amusement of his fellows.

"Come on now, Noach!" Yells one, shoving him towards Santana. "Can't be bested by a lass! She's but the size of your cock!"

"Must be rather poorly endowed," muses Santana, "I'm definitely not the tallest."

He turns an unflattering shade of red; their group is beginning to draw stares from how loud they holler.

As the laughter drains some return to their tasks. Noach, boasting a both a bruised side and pride, turns angrily to Santana. "Now that was anything but kind, priestess. All I was saying was the stark truth."

"Brittany wouldn't ever roll with you. She's much too kind, if a bit dizzy at times."

He eyes her dubiously. "She's a viking, miss. She ain't allowed to be nice - 'specially not if she's a girl. They'd eat her alive. If anything, she's got to be more vicious than them boys who think they're so special." But the conflicted expression on her face as her axe crashed into the warrior's head spoke far more than reputations ever could have. It was certain there was more lingering than she was able to decipher.

She'd defend her another day. Now she has more pressing issues on her hands.

"Why haven't they yet shackled me?" Demands the smaller girl, touching her wrists in proof. Slaves lumber past and the crack of the whip makes her flinch back. Red lashes burn against horribly pale skin.

Noach hums in his throat, going out to touch the soft, feminine flourish of her arm, but draws away at the thunderous expression quickly brewing. "I reckon it's because you aren't a slave." He says simply with raised eyebrows. Santana scoffs and draws back her appendages, planting one hand on her hip and leaning against the opposite weight.

"Are you aiming to be serious? They've taken me from a place I wanted to be, thrown me in a ship full of men who eye me like meat, take bunches of other slaves to be strung up and sold as dogs, then land here where they're all taking them Goddess knows where. It doesn't sound pleasant. How am I not a captive here?"

His dark-bright eyes sweep over her irate face, soaking in her expression. Noach looks like he can't settle on the emotion he wishes to be, switching between angry and exasperated and sympathetic so fast they only settle for a moment - baby-bird fragile - before taking flight into another. Eventually he calms into something she could register as amused if it wasn't for the slight tightening of his mouth.

"Do you think yourself a slave?"

She blinks. "Pardon?"

"I said, do you think yourself a slave?" Noach rustles into his pouch and pulls out several yellow, brittle lumps. He stuffs them into his mouth and begins to chew noisily, licking his lips and grimacing at the bitter taste that touches his tongue. Tears of Chios, made in the islands of Greece. "They allow you to roam, haven't yet shackled you, and Bretagne protects you from unwanted attention. Even now Betar watches over you, something he wouldn't do for a lowly servant."

She bites her lip and bristles but forces herself not to completely shut out his words. He holds merit, yes, but her heart still growls at her not to trust these strange people that have taken her so far away from where she wished to be.

"They would have killed me."

Noach shrugs, saliva dribbling down his chin to be wiped up with a messy pass of his sleeve. Santana grimaces. "They're kind to mystics here. I'm assuming that has a part to play. Plus, if Bretagne is as kind as you say she is, she wouldn't have let them slaughter you like a pig. Something about women sticking together, no?" He winks and looks up as one calls his name from above.

"I have to go, priestess. I'm staying here for months conducting business. Find me again sometime."

With that and a final grin, he leaves her alone in the swarming crowd.

Santana blinks once with smoke-dark eyes and rubs an irritated palm into her face. It leads her no closer to the answers she requires but only to more questions; of the North and these people and the girl with ocean eyes. Why does she deem to be a boy? Surely it brings her simply more heartache in the end.

Sandalio whines and nudges into her open palm, his whiskers tickling her skin. She smiles her thanks to him and kicks out with her staff, fighting her way back towards Betar. After her impromptu conversation with Noach more have taken notice of her, lingering eyes upon her shoulders that itch and claw. Her amethysts brush against her clenched fingers soothingly along with the siren's song that the necklace presses into her skin. As she reaches his massive bulk, the tension somewhat disappears from the lines of her musculature.

Where there was nothing a second ago stands another man; lanky and graceful with a head of hair that deems to look neat in its chaos - he grins and his eyes slit downwards even further with a lopsided tilt to his mouth. The boy's skin isn't quite as dark as hers but certainly deeper than the ruddy Northmen's. Santana's eyebrows raise; she's never before seen one quite like him. Sailors of Spain had spoken about men with slanted eyes and a strange, pitched tongue but never had she laid gaze on one herself. From what they had said they were skilled in the ways of the body, sending grown adults tumbling down with a simple touch of their hands.

His speech is fluid, matching Betar's without difficulty. The slave's collar gleams bright against his neck.

When they spot her the darker man bows slightly and murmurs an apology to Betar, hurrying forward towards Santana. She hunches slightly but he puts his hands out to placate her needle-sharp temper, easing her down before a confrontation can even think to begin. "Komdu með mér, spákonu." He says cheerfully, lips lifting once again into a grin. She notes he carries no weapon on his hip.

"You know I don't understand you." Santana sighs out, wearily planting her staff into the ground. If the mischievous twinkle in his eyes is anything to go on, he knows indeed.

Instead he beckons her forward, pointing over to a gentle hill that rises above a massive longhouse. "Við erum að fara þangað," he responds, "Bretagne langaði mig til að hjálpa þér að setjast i."

She perks up at the mention of Brittany's name. Perhaps she hasn't offended her too deeply after all.

They set off at a brisk walk, feinting in and out of the crowd. On the way she seems almost enamoured by the smells that wind their way into her nose, so painfully starved, and they stop to buy her the wildbird's carcass roasting on a spit. Her mouth waters even as she smiles and tears off one of the legs, watching as Sandalio demolishes it in his powerful jaws.

Mikhail eyes her thoughtfully as she tries her best not to get fatty juice on her face, slurping hungrily at the crisped skin. The priestess is an enigma to him - cold and just as angry, unwilling to meet his attempts at conversation. (Granted, they speak different languages. But he tries.) He had studied the cacophony of expressions on Bretagne's face as she told him to help her settle in, fighting through that flash of bitter hurt to land on something not quite sad. Disappointed, almost. He knows how much she hopes in people.

It's not fair, he muses, the world letting her expect so much without malevolent intent. Mikhail knows without a doubt that if anybody is to bring the unfriendly priestess out of her shell, it will be Bretagne. She's done more miracles in a shorter time.

They swerve through the sparse trees, coming to a house that seems to grow out from the hill itself. She remains rooted to the spot in confusion as he disappears around the bend. Her eyes trace the wooden supports and stone foundation covered by thick, fuzzy grass. The unmistakable sound of a door comes as he steps into the gloom, waiting for her to follow.

It doesn't take long.

The boy can't resist the grin settling over his face at her slack-jawed awe. She stares at the entrance like it's not supposed to be there, fingers dancing along the wood of the doorway. Bretagne's house is _inside_ the great mass, built from mud and stone, given willingly to the forest that surrounds it. It confused him the very first time, too - aren't houses made to avoid the ground? - but now he thinks little of it. Santana takes her first steps tentatively into the room, flinching slightly when the ceiling looms overhead. Her eyes dart around - antelope wary - before settling on the shelves.

In total, the hovel is both short and high for the usual longhouses. Though Bretagne adores the sea and open air she had once said that there was a calm in being swallowed by the Earth, to be cradled by the dirt and have it lull her into sleep. She becomes one with the core of their world.

Santana seems to believe the same thing. Her touch brushes the walls and rubs the dirt between her fingers, gaze jumping from the large bed in the corner splayed out in disarray to the various tables and chairs scattered about; books lie deserted with Brittany's evident frustration present in the pages, well-kept axes and spears leaning against a rack. Towards the back holds a small bookshelf and a fireplace, running skywards to eject the billowing smoke outwards. A large rug lays against the wooden flooring, the muzzle of the whole bear bared and snarling at her ankles. With that, a worn chair pins one of its paws. She nearly trips over a massive oak trunk shoved up to one side of the wall with an imposing lock.

In the far corner is Brittany's bed next to her dresser. A basin lies at the foot with a mirror set up to lean so she can catch her own eyes within. But what draws Santana are the shelves pressed up against the left wall.

Crystals, dried herbs, mortar and pestles, necklaces, incense burners. Even an elegant wooden pipe - untouched but usable - rests on the surface. Her fingers dance centimetres from all the items and receives a pang of homesickness so great she almost doubles over.

Mikhail seems unknowing of her plight and fishes around in a jewelled box for a moment, coming up with a triumphant hum and shiny beads dangling in his grasp. Upon closer inspection, she recognizes the telltale shimmer of the lapis lazuli in his hand. He offers it to her with a smile. "Taktu það."

They draw her. Beckoning.

As soon as her fingers touch the leather that strings them all together, a great sense of rending and emptiness rushes through her. Her mind gapes like dealt a wound that feels no pain, soon being replaced by a comforting presence and a gentle smile in the depths of her memory. Everything is brighter. Sharper. As she stands, they seem to glow in the cup of her palm.

_Lapis lazuli is for spiritual enlightenment, mija. Can you feel the knowledge of the Goddess in your head? That is the stone connecting your spirit to her domain. Cherish it dearly. _

She ties it firmly to the gnarled tips of her staff. It clinks quietly against the purple amethyst. Her second talisman to heighten the first.

Mikhail pulls her away from the countless reagents she could no doubt use and use well, instead forging further into the strange home. Rugs are scattered all about and the walls are also covered in animal pets, soft under her hands. Everything about this place is welcoming in the best of ways. The fire is warm but not overwhelming and they swerve to a second bed where the lick of the flame is distant but soothing none the less. "Þú verður að sofa hér." He says, gesturing at the smaller bed with a sweep of his hand. Santana eyes him and then the fresh robes laid out on the pillow; a lighter grey and a fresh linen slip, free of sweat or blood from travels.

"For me?" She asks with a raised eyebrow, gesturing to the clothes. Surely Brittany deems not to give her items when she has been so brusque with her?

Mikhail nods once with that infernal grin on his face, eyes crinkling happily as he does a motion that looks like sleeping. The bed is for her too? It's only when she sits down that she notices the sheepskin under her feet. The blonde's generosity induces a wave of guilt within her that only grows as she looks around the quaint, homey room, noting the lack of walls or privacy. She most obviously lives here alone.

Falling back on the bed - that feels heavenly after months of dirt and straw, for any enquiring minds - she gestures to her clothes and shoos Mikhail away with an amused but lazy wave. Her muscles are already unwinding rapidly. Whatever it is she lays on does nothing but cushion her in ways she never thought imaginable; a cloud of wool without the itch, a swath of silk without the cold. Even though she promises only to close her eyes for a minute, her features soon smooth out into sleep.

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><p>The child of winter tingles from the sun that causes her to tug the collar from her slender neck. Sweat drips to stain her flesh a ruddy red, far from her natural monotone, but she simply grimaces and treks up the hill, boots digging into the brittle leaves underfoot. The clothing shed from the trees last autumn have not yet been swept away by the summer's gales and abandons them to rest above the soil.<p>

Upon shouldering into her home she stretches and lets out a humming sigh of content, hooking her bulkier weapons and round shield upon one of the racks. She tugs the tunic and quilted padding underneath up over her head and casts it to the floor, breathing a groan of relief at her bare skin hitting the warm air - subsequently, she trips over her discarded items and blushes readily at her own clumsiness. At the disarray of her space, she groans. Brittany has little time for cleaning.

A dishevelled lump lays in her spare bed. The warrior squints her eyes and sidles up next to the object, gingerly sidestepping Sandalio who eyes her with trepidation. Wound in her fresh clothing is Santana, curled around her staff with her lips popping open into a wide gape, fingers twitching in dream. A sleeve covers her closed eyelids and tickles her nose, prompting a sleepy mumble and a hand to swat away the intruder. Brittany's giggle stirs her thoughts.

"Come on, Santana. Time to wake up." She knows well enough the priestess got little to no sleep on the sail here, but if she lets her wander into her own head she'll become restless at night. Brittany wonders what the sleepless do when all others have descended into slumber. If _she_ was awake when the world wasn't, _well_, first she'd attempt to use that massive longsword hanging above the smithy like a challenge. She's always been too shy to even hold it, fearful that the weight would simple topple her before she could even hold it upright. It was once her father's as a victory boon against the Anglo-Saxons, but was now strung up as a warning against all other enemies. After that, she'd go on the hunt for the unicorn she'd seen flitting about in the woods around their town...

A sleepy snuffling noise reaches her ears. She glances down to where she still hovers over the girl and watches her lips smack together drily before removing the sleeve from her eyes - she groans in discontent and attempts to grind the fatigue from her lids. In her sluggish state she barely starts at Brittany's face floating above her bed, simply trailing her eyes down for a second before slapping her palms over her vision and curling away from the viking.

"Ser decente, Brittany!" She snaps out but Brittany sees the tips of her ears burn and devour her natural colour. Oh, right. No shirt.

"Sorry." Brittany snickers without much apology, searching for a random piece of linen to pull on. When one slips over her head, she grimaces at it sticking to her damp skin. Santana peeks out from under her fingers and gives a careful sigh of relief, getting up to almost fall out of bed along the way. When she shifts, Brittany notices the blue now shining from her staff. New additions. They look good on her.

Silence falls. The priestess fiddles awkwardly with the bedspread and tries to fight a yawn, rubbing at the dark marks under her eyes. Brittany wishes she had an instrument to break the tension. Studying her face, she watches as a myriad of feelings - closed and guarded but still there - flit over until it settles on something nervous. When Santana looks up to see the blonde watching her, she averts her gaze to the far wall.

"Lo siento." She mutters quietly, stroking the staff for needed strength. "Yo era injusto para ti. Todo es tan frustrante para mí. No sé donde está yo estoy con vosotros... ¿soy yo un esclavo, o en condiciones de salir de este lugar?" Her eyes flicker over as if seeking an answer to which Brittany shrugs helplessly. "Lo sé, lo sé. Pero aún así ... Lo siento."

The blonde gets a feeling she's being apologized at, so she simply smiles as bright as the budding sun. "It's fine. I understand."

There is a new tranquillity about her, the presence felt earlier back in force. Santana seems to bask in its comforts and moves with a little more grace than before. It's refreshing. Brittany grins and gets off abruptly from the bed - Santana wobbles and goes out to steady herself, flinching back just as she touches skin. Perhaps they still have a fair ways to go.

"I want to show you something." Says the warrior, beckoning her forward with a wave of hand. Santana looks at her quizzically but rises, new robes swishing about her ankles. The lighter grey looks good on her skin, coaxing out the dark honey that it will cling onto even in these cold climates. Outside of their haven the wind picks up to bring relief from the growing heat. "Come on, this way."

They exit the room and spiral back down the hill in dizzying turns, confusing Santana to no end. Thrice has she had to duck from an unexpected branch wishing to make a home in her hair, not yet combed and seeming to disgust her with its dirt. Brittany notes to let her use the basin sometime soon - alone, as with her violent reaction to her nudity, she can only imagine what she'd be like if the blonde were to walk in while she was in such a state of undress. The whole time Sandalio lopes at their heels, tongue lolling and flanks heaving with each weighted pant.

Traversing the town in quick, confident strides, they duck through the canvas of one door-flap and are immediately assaulted by the stench of sweat. Santana blanches and Brittany wrinkles her nose but nudges her onwards into the shadows of the wall next to a low stage. Around it stand both men and women alike, murmuring impatiently for whatever it is to begin.

The jangling of chains reach their ears. One of the men she saw on the ship bursts forth, grasping rough leather in his meaty hand. On the other end of these crude leashes are bound men of all different sizes, stumbling due to fatigue, skin worn raw from the restrains. "The newest batch from Aarhus!" roars the viking, jerking them forward until they tumble and kneel. Their bodies are swallowed in the swelling crowd.

From the corner of her eye Brittany sees Santana's face crease with both anger and disgust, eyes wide and dark. Her grip upon her staff chokes the wood as she subconsciously rubs her wrists where the men's restraints burn them raw.

It continues like that, ravaging and yelling sums of money until the children are brought out. She stiffens at one particular boy, resisting and crying out for his mother. She'd recognize that shock of blond hair even in her nightmares - his clothes, currently visible in the light of day, are saturated in blood. Now she sees the beginning of strong shoulders and a firm jaw, budding muscles visible from the tears in his shirt. They try to quiet him but his yelling only grows stronger. "Your mother can't help you now," growls one of the guardians, grabbing him roughly by the arm, "so shut up!"

Brittany already sees people weighing the pros and cons. Such a healthy boy will go for much, but his temper brings down his value, explosive and stubborn to his masters. Before she has too much time to scan the crowds, Santana's grasp snares her shirt and tugs insistently.

She meets smoke-coal eyes with perpetual confusion, shifting in between each to try and find the answers she seeks. Santana seems almost pleading but determined in all the right ways, the tone of her voice desperate, gesturing up to the boy and speaking in her wild, distressed tongue. It's obvious she has a certain fondness for the villager, for the vitae of his kin is still buried under the nails of her fingers. The blonde hesitates, remembering the fury in his gaze.

"Por favor!" she begs, brow furrowing further at the sound of her own tone. It seems this is just as out of character for her as Brittany was led to believe. "One silver!" yells one, adjusting her brooch primly. Another grimaces and counters. "One silver and four copper!" It bounces until her head spins and all she knows is Santana's fingers on her wrist and voice in her ear.

"Two and a half silver with a bag of eastern spice!" Everything quiets and they turn to look at Brittany - her cheeks flame but she stands tall, comforted by the prophetess that lingers by her side. The presence that seems to shroud Santana in a cloak brushes against her cheek. On stage, the trader's eyebrows raise high. "That much for a _gellir_ like him?" Her arms cross (she shakes slightly but digs her fingers into her skin to quell it) in annoyance.

"Are your ears faulty?" The crowd titters and he shoves the boy at her. He stumbles on his chains and Santana catches him carefully, pulling him down to her height. Her words slur together and he takes refuge in her slender arms, nestling his streaked face into the fragility of her shoulder and letting her take on the weight of his burdens without complaint. Though he clings to her in relief, he still calls for the only blood he has left. Santana doesn't understand the words, but she turns to Brittany again with imploring eyes. "And the mother."

"What?" He looks around.

"His mother. I want her too. She's so close to death that she isn't worth anything." The large man contemplates for a moment, twisting his beard. Everybody watches until Brittany feels like the tips of her ears are about to sear off her skull. "Very well, Piersson. The woman!"

They lumber down with the moaning, sweating woman ensconced in their grasp; her son instantly appears by her side, cradling her soaked face and mumbling words of prayer. They dump her into his small grip and together they hold the woman above ground, careful not to place too much pressure on her terrible wound. Even as Brittany blanches at the whispering that has started to ripple across the room, Santana's hesitant, grateful squeeze upon her wrist is more than enough.

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><p><strong>Translations!<strong>

** Hjálpa henni, ég er betl þig: Help her, I'm begging you**

** Þú ert enn þörf hér, lítið einn: You are still needed here, little one**

** ¿Qué pasó?: What's happening?**

** Apearse: Get off**

** No me toques: Don't touch me**

** Mitt nafn er Finngeirr: My name is Finngeirr**

** Við erum skipakví fljótlega. Þú ættir ekki að ganga um eins og þetta án kraga: We are docking soon. You should not walk around like this without a collar.**

** Taktu það. Það verður auðveldara: Take it. It'll be easier.**

** Bara setja hana á-: Just put it on-**

** Hvað ert þú að reyna að gera?: What are you trying to do?**

** Þeir eru gift: They are married**

** Komdu með mér, spákonu: Come with me, prophetess**

** Við erum að fara þangað, Bretagne langaði mig til að hjálpa þér að setjast í: We are going there, Brittany wanted me to help you settle in**

** Ser decente, Brittany: Be decent, Brittany!**

** Lo siento. Yo era injusto para ti. Todo es tan frustrante para mí. No sé donde está yo estoy con vosotros... ¿soy yo un esclavo, o en condiciones de salir de este lugar? Lo sé, lo sé. Pero aún así ... Lo siento: I apolgize. I was unfair to you. Everything is just so frustrating to me. I don't know where I stand with you... am I a slave, or able to leave this place? I know, I know. But still... I'm sorry.**

** Por favor: Please**

** Gellir: Screamer**


	5. Chapter 5

[A/N: Hey guys! Bit faster update now. I'd like to thank all the reviews that actually take the time to leave a note - especially **ptoricandblt**, whose massive reviews leave me grinning every time. Speaking of which - are there only eight of you out there? Don't be shy, I'd love to hear what you think! It's difficult to churn out such a big chapter, the support would be much appreciated.

On another note, I'm now beta-less again. If any of you would be willing to help me out, it would be hugely appreciated. It's difficult to run through such a large chunk again and again to catch all the little things I don't see. It's more of a build-up chapter and I'm not happy with some parts, but I figured you deserved another update. Enjoy!]

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><p>Chapter 5<p>

_**you are my medicine**_

_**I am your protection**_

_**April 28th, 912**_

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><p>Kaupang has bloomed into colour. Under the warming sun of the late-April weathers, the wilderness swells with life. The air is thick with the scent of growing things, decay of winter swept away with firm, guiding gusts. Hunters have begun to bring in more hauls, the fattening animals dangling from their pouches, saturating the winds with the perpetual scent of cooking meat.<p>

It also means sickness and injury as people grow reckless with the changing seasons. Though the bones of cold snows are beginning to be covered by the muscle and fat of warm grasses, Santana still finds herself beside the bedside of many villagers of differing status with a scowl and murmuring curses but calm, steady hands.

"Stop." She snaps in irritation to the groaning man writhing upon the single bed. Her fingers are already stained in his blood - every time she goes to try and close the wound, he shifts and winces, causing her stitch to slip. Her mother had never trained her exclusively to be a healer, but it seemed that task had always fallen to them in Botaya. Perhaps they just enjoyed feeling their presence and believing that their magic would keep them safe from future harm - Santana thought it a travesty that meant her getting up at ungodly hours to an ungrateful man or woman who believed she should know the answers to the seven seas. Even if she's travelled many, many miles, it seems that one fact hasn't deemed to change.

Again she tries, right hand flattening against his chest to shove him down (not like her meager weight does much) and left wielding the needle. His... wife? sister? she doesn't know, her grasp upon the language is rudimentary at best - seems to catch on and pushes her body down against him. Santana huffs out an irritated breath. "Stay."

With both of her appendages free, she quickly begins her work before his wretched moaning can start up again with renewed vigour. What had they done without her? She swears she's the only one who actually tries to heal these people. Had they another priestess, or were the simply using their own family members as best they could? For all their roaring and sword swinging, she's not sure if she's amused or disappointed with how little tolerance quite a few of them seem to possess about having things sewn back together.

_Perhaps if they didn't get injured in the first place_, she grumbles, finishing her sutures, _then this wouldn't be necessary._

Her hand is crude but effective; large, rough deerhide crisscross his angry wound in neat, if unevenly spaced, stitches. With a smug smirk she pats the wound - expression deepening in delight when he lets out a pained yelp - before getting up and casting around for a basin to wash her hands in. They stare at her until she struggles out _water? _with a cloying accent. Moments later, she's scrubbing the rust from her skin.

"Ég er þér því miður þurfti að koma út á þessu snemma." says the woman, glaring at the pathetic man on the table. Santana's eyes blankly roam her face, asking if the words would be embedded in her skin, before the northwoman starts and gives a sheepish smile. "Thank you." It is said slowly, as one would to a child - it makes the invisible tips of Santana's ears bloom in embarrassment as she gives one sharp, short nod and gets to her feet, hands still dripping. She shakes off the offerings of a towel and steps out quickly under the overcast sky.

For a moment she believes herself back in Botaya with the scent of planting season all around her. Children play in the dirt and hovering mothers tut their tongues disapprovingly, shielding their eyes against the wind. Men of all sizes come and go, holding crates or animals, faces weary but smiling. It is the swirling of their language that brings her back, too fast and complicated for somebody like her. Santana sighs. She hadn't much sleep the night before, up into all hours of the night due to Brittany's snoring.

It wasn't the girl's fault, no - the cold she'd been struck with had jammed straight down to her brain stem. She'd fed her a tea made up of elderberry, peppermint and yarrow, scowled at her when she tried to spit it back out and snickered as she forced her to inhale the powdered remains of a chamomile plant. Through her efforts she received a bleary smile as Brittany finally found peace in dreams, snoring loudly into her pillow with her mouth gaping open and blankets tangled around her ankles. The tea had caused her to sweat, so Santana allowed her to take off her shirt _just this once_ without griping. (Throughout the weeks, she's seen far more than she's ever cared to. Brittany seems to have no sense of self awareness, often opening the door only to forget that she's lacking trousers.) In return, her own slumber had been sporadic at best, punctuated by the grumbling inhalations of her roommate.

In the distance she hears the whisper of the sea, present even through her own earth-covered walls. At times she wakes with the distinct feeling of being swallowed, but the other girl's presence soothes the thoughts of vanishing into the darkness with nobody able to hear her cries. Still, the wide open sky is more than pleasing to her and she sucks in a lungful of flower-laced air, sickly sweet and refreshing on the tongue.

Santana whistles once and smiles at the crashing of grasses. "You really aren't subtle for a dog."

Sandalio wags up at her, tail lashing in contentment, fur sticking up at odd angles from his romp in the forest. He's been a constant companion over the weeks, never more than arm's length away. Taken on the position of watchdog with the way he sleeps at her feet.

"Shall we go visit the trees for a little while? I've been horribly cooped up."

The priestess enjoys the way her native language rolls around in her mouth, silky smooth, all the syllables joining together with a slurred but precise meaning. She's been having trouble adapting to Northvegia's way of speech, all the guttural snaps transferring poorly into her own conditioned mind. She simply needs somewhere to rest.

They set off upwards through the gentle hills, her staff sinking shallow into the earth as they wander. For all her perceived negativity about the North (it has to do with being kidnapped and leered at, not anything against the land itself) it is indeed a beautiful place, forests tall and proud with glittering fjords and towering peaks. It has a certain serenity one couldn't find in vast portions of Iberia, too swept up in booming cities and greedy merchants. Everything throbs with a delicate balance of life she is loathe to disturb as she treks into the lush green. Her fingers trail along the leaves, still damp from rain a few nights past, beads catching the weak, fractured sunlight that filters in through the branches.

Eventually she comes upon a clearing with a flat rock nestled off into one side, warm from the sun. She perches upon it smoothly with crossed legs, laying her staff down to rest and scratching Sandalio's ears when he flops with a doggy huff beside her. Her necklace pulses against the hollow of her throat. Everywhere she searches, the Goddess is.

Her eyes close. As her hands lay limply on her lap, her breathing measures out; the extremities of her body become fuzzy and fade into the distant background. The priestess listens to the world around her and settles her exhales in time until her chest swells with every murmur of the winds. She feels her mind loosening as a warm, creeping contentment descends upon her: unlike those who live without the heartbeat of the world, Santana holds no fear in letting go.

Her reality falls away as does your favourite song; turning whisper-soft before vanishing altogether.

When she blinks her eyes open again, she's no longer in her clearing.

A wide open grove sprawls before her. Specks of light float lazily in the air to light the way and lend an ethereal glow - when she looks up, the sky has been cleaved in two: one holds the splendour of the sun, and the other the luminescence of the moon. Her feet gingerly touch down and she peels herself away from the rock, almost stumbling when she stands. Looking behind her, she sees her own body and Sandalio peacefully oblivious to the world. Even in this light it's impossible to miss the half-crescent standing vividly upon her forehead.

"Come to me, child."

Santana's head whips around to the source of the voice. Standing in the center of the grove is a figure who almost blinds her with her brilliance; she squints against her glory and doesn't even try to tame the wild joy in her heart. She strides towards her with quick steps, grass lush underfoot, a smile blooming along the corners of her lips. For the first time in months she feels whole, pure. She will be in the stars for days to come.

When she goes to sink to her knees, slender fingers catch the curve of her jaw. A ripple of burning heat shockwaves from their point of contact, searing in the best of ways. "One does not kneel before their Mother, little one."

And so she remains standing, raising her vision to fully take in the being before her. The glow has faded and with it leaves the outline of a woman, full and voluptuous, wreathed in flowing silk that moved in the absence of wind. Her eyes are kind despite the lack of colour; they are white like the moon that watches above them. Though her skin is of caramel, it too exudes a halo - extending even to her midnight stained hair that floats free of her shoulders. With her graceful features and slender face, she reminds Santana startlingly of her own mother. "Of course, Goddess. You are well?"

A serene smile curls up full lips. "I am, priestess. I am proud of my children that are fighting through this latest peril." Her eyes shift to Santana - she feels bashful under their watch.

"I'm simply doing what Mami told me."

"Ah, yes, but you have managed to keep yourself safe thus far. It counts for much. Though it was under poor circumstances, I was elated when you were gifted as a priestess. The title wears well around your shoulders."

The shorter girl smiles herself, hands clasping before her. "I admit, at times I feel out of my skin. It's all so new."

"That is to be expected. It was given to you quickly and without warning." Her face tilts up momentarily to the sky. "Come, walk with me."

As she walks Santana notes that her feet do not make hollows in the ground. She looks out - where the glowing daylight mixes with the velveteen dark punctuated by millions of stars, the grove fades out to be replaced by barren, cracked land with bones that rear out in spiked cages. Skulls peer back emptily as she takes in their missing eyes. Teetering on the cusp of death, they halt at the very ends of the green and gaze out into the broken land.

"What is this place, Mother?"

Her head swings slowly towards Santana - though they were hard to miss, only now does she note the massive horns spiralling from her head, roots hidden in her hair, decorative beads strung along their length that pulse with power. "It is my realm, priestess. I watch over the living as do I over the dead." One lithe hand gestures to the wasteland. "Surely you know of this. My cycle is that of nature's way, as all things must come in a full circle before beginning once more."

"You have welcomed us into life, so too do you guide us into death." Ataecina nods, pleased.

"But nothing is eternal, my child. There will always be more so long as the cycle repeats."

She thinks of the atrocities committed in her country with seemingly no end: bodies battered and spirits broken all in the name of a God they cannot see in their lives. Ataecina stands before her with no quarrel or pride, simply appearing for her Child out of her own will. She is in all things - the air they breathe and the food they eat, giving sacred grain with the harvests. With such proof, how can one dispute the existence of something that is undoubtedly real? The bitterness of men is the only thing eternal, she scowls, remembering her mother's heartbroken expression when she banished her from their lifelong home.

"Not all understand, Santana." She says sadly, a hint of regret colouring her face. "Some of my children have wandered from their mother to commit horrible acts. I weep in sorrow at their pain, for they find comfort in forcing the minds of others to believe in something not all accept. It will cause strife for many years as it sweeps across the land and fans the flames until they consume, bright in their misguided fury of souls scorned."

"Can't you do anything about it, my Goddess?" Santana pleads. "They are of you, surely you can convince them to stop this violence. The death toll rises so high, and more suffer."

Within the monochromatic orbs is the pain of the ages, swelling through her until the echo slams hard against her chest. The priestess staggers back as her Mother opens herself to her own mind, feeding through the thoughts and emotions of the men that commit these monstrosities. Their hearts are turned entirely away from Ataecina; some scorn her presence, and others deign not to acknowledge it at all.

Her feet sink into the grasses as she bends over to regain her stolen breath, sweat beading upon her brow. The ethereal woman's lips have turned downwards into an saddened grimace. "Do you see? I have given you the choice of freedom. I do not enslave you to me, for you would be unhappy. Those that have turned away from the light... I cannot force them to return. If they find peace they will naturally return to my bosom, but those with violence in their minds cannot be helped." She gazes out at the broken land. "I am not upset that they find their solace in other Gods. No, for I am all things, even if they do not recognize it. It is the fact that they must cause such harm on others to justify their faith. I have helped many through to the next life before their given time."

Wind threads through her hair. Santana slowly regains her bearings and straightens up, mouth pursed at the stupidity of humanity.

"Why do they turn to the dark?"

"Not the dark. The dark is natural as is the light, and is not to be feared. It is the corruption of the night that you are to be wary of. The twisting of ideals to turn them black and rotting."

With the moment of silence that passes through them, Santana feels a feather-light embrace on her forearm. She turns in confusion, looking up once to Ataecina before craning her gaze back to watch herself. A small form has squatted beside her, calling out, shock of blond hair perpetually tousled over his bright gaze. The touches grow firmer and with more substance the longer they go on until Santana is fighting to remain in her state. The Goddess smiles gently and turns to face her, fingertips pressing into the center of the girl's forehead. Where she touches, Santana burns.

Her own hands go up to circle her slender wrist, eyes begging. "Why am I here, Mother? What need have they of me?"

Seeking fingers tuck a stray lock of raven hair from her face, horns glinting against the sun. Though the Goddess towers over her she feels safe in her presence, wrapped up in an invisible blanket. "There are reasons that have yet to be revealed, my child, but know that you will understand when you see them. A great threat is to come one day. When it arrives, you will rise to meet it with the North at your side."

"A threat? I'm but eighteen! I have no ability to fight!"

A mysterious smile. "Perhaps you are not born a fighter, but circumstance will make you something greater. These people need you, priestess, and in time, you will need them. But, Santana... do not reject that which appears from the bonds you will make. Their friendship - and perhaps even something greater - will hold you up in your weakest moments."

She is fading in and out now, one foot in either world, struggling to retain any last link to her spirit. "Something greater?" But her Mother does not respond. Instead comes a grave expression flitting over her serene face, mouth set and eyes flint. Her concern washes over her in drowning waves as the words are muttered into her forehead after she places a tingling kiss to her mark.

"Beware the unnatural dark, Santana. It will corrupt everything you hold sacred, and all it requires to do so is the ability to listen."

* * *

><p>In the training area behind one of the low longhouses, it paints a different picture entirely. A sharp cry followed by the clanking of metal as the chainmail shivers in collapse. Within its pool lies a tall figure, back curved and arms braced, blonde hair spilling over her strong shoulders where it gathers sweat and dust. The others form a circle and jeer around her; Brittany is too focused on the corrosive pain in her lungs to pay them much heed.<p>

Whatever Santana had given her upon the peak of the moon had long since worn off, leaving her with aching joints, red-rimmed eyes, a clogged nose and a chest that refused to let her inhale without difficulty. Every breath had the chance to send her into a fit of wet, hacking coughs, springing tears to her eyes and breaking her defence with ease as she struggled to breathe. The deep, fevered dreams she had experienced the night before left her with an odd sort of haze around her head, buzzing with exhaustion and fever, wishing desperately for her bed. Yet she doesn't allow herself to stop, staggering again to her feet amidst the laughs and stifling another spasm.

"Haven't you had enough, Piersson?" yells one, brandishing his sword mockingly. He had been the last to put her down with a heavy blow - the reflexive inhale of her lungs had been too much for the sickness and put her away just as his weapon came in at her side. She had crumpled like wet paper.

Wearily the warrior picks up her own sword and levels her tired eyes at them. They _know_ she's unwell, evidenced by the concerned expressions on some of their faces; the others who have held grudges on her unfailing determination take use of this weakness to grind her back down into the dirt. Her shield raises along with her weapon and she grits her teeth to still the subtle trembling of her muscles.

"I'm not staying on the ground yet, am I?"

"That sounds like a challenge."

His arm comes down in an arc and she darts out of the way, feet heavy but still far fleeter than they. In theory, her lack of weight is used to flit from his blows, jabbing and disabling ever so precisely. Now that she can barely summon the energy to pull herself from the crippling strikes, luck is not on her side. It's only a matter of time until one puts her out for good.

Her father had always told her never to give up and fight through until the end. She rakes her sword across his leather clad leg, creating a groove in the material. If she had tried, his artery would be severed.

It's all about gradual destruction.

Harsh breath snorts through his nostrils as he swings again - too close to dodge, she lifts her shield and winces at the impact that almost pops her shoulder out of place. In return she lashes out with a kick. It finds home in the strength of his abdomen but her thighs are stronger than his surprise. She grunts and shoves him away.

"You're not getting away, girl!" The next barrage is faster than she'd expect, sword coming to parry only to whirl and deflect the next blow. One slips through her guard and she staggers back, right arm drooping as the weapon skitters away to the other end of the crude ring. His teeth are white and feral as he grins. An animal zoning in for the kill.

Brittany can do nothing more than dance around him, swiping with the round of her shield, feet flying as she ducks and deflects and dodges away from his battery. She's tiring - her lungs _scream_ - and he appears relentless. Sweat drips freely from her temples, body much too hot under the windy and dull sky, eyes glassy and unfocused.

"Bretagne!" Her head lolls over just in time to see Sveinn launching a spear in her direction, end first. Her fever-addled brain pauses for a second but reflex has her hands coming up, clasping onto the familiar smooth shaft like a lifeline. All of a sudden she is dangerous. The boy opposite her frowns, noting how her range has just tripled in size. Surely she can't hit from all the way over there?

Wrong.

Like an exotic snake curling to strike, Brittany's whole body extends; her muscles stretch and lengthen, resting her weight upon her bent legs, arms thrust outwards and wrists angled. The tip of the spear is deadly accurate, darting out to jab right where his liver would be before retracting. In this new determination her cheekbones appear sharper, her eyes darker. A man instead of a maiden.

It is purely instinct. She is running off adrenaline alone and even those reserves are dwindling.

They trade blows, the blonde always dancing out of range before he can land a solid hit. The flush upon his cheeks is growing frustrated, the dull ache of the spear stabbing into the fleshy parts of his body, all critical and useful. They tell no lies when they believe her to be a superior spearman.

Training has always appealed to the tall girl. It astounds the others how she can simply go on and on for hours, losing herself in the rhythm of battle. Lacking the pounds upon pounds of muscle that the boys possess, her stamina far outshines them even if she will never attain their strength. There's a certain beauty in agility, she thinks. The ability to make something so angry and violent seem like an elegant dance speaking to her; her music is the clash of weapons, her beat the thumps of her own frenzied heart. She relies not on wild swings and brutal blows to stagger her target, instead trying her hand at accuracy and crippling joints that leave them entirely at her mercy. (She likes this better, choosing to spare their lives while a rogue cut of her sword would have wounded them beyond repair.)

But time has dragged on, and Brittany's sickened body tires. As she lunges forward again the tingle in her chest increases to a not-so-subtle pang; her bones convulse as she struggles to keep in the cough. The boy sees this and grabs the shaft of her spear with his hands. Alarmed, she attempts to wrench away, but with the pressure they both apply to the spear there is an elongated crunch heard throughout the circle before she is jerked sideways - her weapon snaps in two and splinters helplessly as she goes down holding nothing but a wooden stick.

Any anger is difficult to attain through her bright red face, struggling to her knees through the rattling coughs that unglue her very innards. "Y-you-" another fit of sharp cracks from her chest and she doubles over in pain, eyes watering, "_alicarl!_ You did that... on purpose!"

(She's fishing for her words. They muddle and become tangled inside her mind, beaten down into submission with exhaustion and a constant sweltering heat.)

He laughs even as she spits out a mouthful of green goop, wiping her hand along her brow._ It's far past a cold_, she thinks hazily, almost being able to imagine Santana's disapproving frown at her position. But as she squints, the image won't go away.

"Dejar!" The command is snapped, cold. Heads turn - she'd know that voice anywhere.

The village can't decide where it stands upon the priestess. Some view her as a blessing, and others as a dark omen of the coming days. (Brittany knows not why Santana watches the figureheads of the ships with a wary eye, muttering incantations to herself and tapping her forehead repeatedly. If she had the chance, she's not sure she'd want to know.)

The priestess fights her way through the crowd and crouches down beside her, face knitted into a concerned frown. "Brittany?" She asks gently, the usual prickle gone from her voice. There are so many things that the darker girl wants to ask her - in her eyes, along her lips, hidden in the curl of her hair - but none of them are able to be properly articulated. Instead she lays her hand across the blonde's forehead, eyebrows arching high as the heat seems to crackle against her own skin. The backs of her hands move, pressing under her jaw, her neck, very beginnings of her collarbone. Everywhere she ghosts, Brittany seems to radiate sickly heat.

Dirt sinks into her fingernails as she heaves herself sitting. The only thing she can fathom is the aches of her body and Santana's hands brushing along her skin; it is unusual of her, to willingly initiate touch. She relishes the fleeting seconds, eyes fluttering shut as the cool press soothes her burning flesh.

"I'm fine." She says slowly, faintly, sure to punctuate her words with crisp sounds, knowing Santana hates it when the words all slur together like a running stream. The other in question eyes her dubiously and takes in the welts and broken chain surrounding her form and the shattered spear clutched in her fists. By her feet now lies the other end, forlorn, too short for use. The metal is dull in the ground, but she can't summon the state of mind to crawl over and pick it up.

"Fine?" Santana repeats, watching her intently for the inevitable lie. Brittany tries to smile but it comes out strange - lopsided, one side higher than the other, gaze glassy - on her face. The priestess still feels the clammy warmth seeping into her own skin.

She mutters something in her own tongue and awkwardly yanks the warrior to her feet. With a start, she underestimates both her dead weight and the density of her body - they stumble before Brittany's mind catches up with the rest of the world and she begins to carry herself upright. Santana huffs, winded, before mumbling to the blonde warrior as one would a reluctant child.

Together they stumble away from the circle. Santana has no iota of an idea how she managed to fight in this state, sweating profusely even in the cool air, jaw hanging open and eyes half-closed. Her heat sticks uncomfortably to the inside of Santana's robes, slicking her side. Brittany stumbles over roots that she knows like the back of her hand, head swirling and body oddly light but lead at once. Once she goes to put her open hand against a tree only to realize she now clutches the other end of her spear in a loose, lazy grip. _Father would be disappointed._ She tries to tighten her hold but only tenses her muscles, sending them both crashing into the brush.

They sprawl to the ground in slow motion and Brittany simply lays there, closing her eyes against the spinning world. Vaguely she feels hands pulling at her lax muscles. How did she move before? Adrenaline, perhaps? Some strange reserve of energy? Alone, she can't be brought to care.

Not alone.

Somehow she winds up on her bed, propped against the wall. The harsh sweeping of Santana's laboured breathing rushes across her face and prompts her to open her eyes, some semblance of coherency returning at the surprise of chocolate brown mere inches from her own. Her exhales send goosebumps rising over her arms and up her neck. Tingling.

Satisfied that she's awake, Santana presses a clump of spotted herbs into her hands. Their texture is velvet under her stroking thumbs and she looks to the priestess in confusion.

"Mastica."

"What?" Her voice is slurred now, cracking when her throat pangs.

Santana mimes gnashing her teeth together, gesturing to the plant and then back to Brittany. When she takes them hesitantly and raises them to her lips, the priestess nods in encouragement. "_Tyggja._"

This time it's her who makes the puzzled expression. Brittany mimics her earlier motion. "You _tyggja_ when you do this." She sees Santana take in the information with a nod, so she stuffs the leaves into her mouth. Her nose wrinkles at the soft, fine hairs along the flat of the leaf, but she begins to noisily chomp down upon the plant regardless. She trusts her judgment.

Temporarily.

Santana sees it coming a moment before she executes her plan and slaps her own hand over her mouth to stop her from spitting it out. She snickers as Brittany's face contorts at the taste; already she can feel her tongue drying out and the bitter sting coating the back of her throat. The taller girl whines, long and low, rumbling out from her chest like a petulant child even as she obediently keeps chewing. Santana doesn't even notice she's still holding her palm over Brittany's lips as her jaw works under her clenched fingers, completely amused by the various exaggerated faces her companion's been pulling this whole time. It's obvious that she's trying to glare even as her blue eyes sparkle with mirth, mumbling something sloppily into the cup of her hand despite the fact the herb has taken away a great portion of her saliva. She is far too delirious to do anything defiant. Santana groans and wipes her palm against her robes in half-hearted disgust, tugging the waterskin from Brittany's pouch until she bumps it against her lips.

"Drink." She says, pressing the rim against her mouth. Brittany sighs and takes it, receiving a shake of the head when she goes to spit out the chewed plant.

Time trickles by slowly with the only noise being the comforting roar as the cooking fire comes to life and Brittany's slow chomping. After much silent arguing she had swallowed the remaining pieces of the wretched herb, pulling an expression adequately horrendous for such a tragedy (it seems even a fever cannot mask the disgusting taste that now coats her palette). Santana had turned away with a smile playing along the edges of her lips - small victories. Tentatively she clears her throat and almost immediately sets to coughing, shaking her straight up from her seat, staining the backs of her teeth with her slimy insides. It seems to continue on forever until her throat is raw, chest aching, head pounding - but she can breathe easier, green pulled loose from her lungs and staying where she spits it into a bowl that had magically appeared at her side. Perhaps the priestess had reason after all.

"Thank you." She mumbles after regaining her breath, slumping over to the side. Her eyes flutter shut again for a moment - she relishes the dark under her lids and tries to fall deeper despite the constant discomfort of her chainmail.

What seems like a moment later fingers are prying her heavy eyes apart, steam blanketing her face. Her brows knit together and she mumbles incoherently, face twisting into the blankets in an effort to get away from the unwelcome source. But it persists, moving with her when she attempts to draw back. Eventually she squints her eyes open again, taking a moment to focus on the cup now sitting in front of her vision.

"Drink." Santana says again, hints of pity colouring her tone. The signs were all there earlier, and she feels herself somewhat responsible for letting Brittany exert herself in this state - sickly skin, glazed eyes, heavy sweat. Even though the rattle of her breath has ceased for now, she still places the wooden mug of tea in her minutely trembling hands. She is a priestess and her touch is made to bless and to heal.

Such intense training with little sleep is simply asking for illness. From now it, it seems it is up to her in order to make sure Brittany does not sneak off at the break of dawn to wear herself down to the bone.

She grumbles. She already looks after one child, isn't another too much?

(Her eyes turn to the pitiful form curled in her sheets, slowly sipping at her remedy. Perhaps not.)

Once she reaches the dredges of her cup, Santana pries it from her limp fingers and helps her lift off the heavy chainmail coat. It completely befuddles her, how such a slim girl can wear the thing into battle - it almost knocks her off-kilter simply from holding it. Her fingers go to remove Brittany's soaked shirt but thinks better of it, unwilling to perform an act so... caring. She doesn't _care_ for her. She's simply an... an... ally. Yes, an ally. Her and Mikhail, maybe Noach and Betar. That's all.

The way she carefully unlaces the collar says otherwise, taking rags to blot the sweat from her skin. Already she has fallen into fevered dreams, mouth gaping open, eyes darting uneasily under her lids. Santana wonders what such a simple girl dreams of. Are her imaginings as complicated as her problems?

(It is only when the sun has fallen and she listens to Brittany's pained murmurs, dredged deep in her own lucid nightmares, that she begins to entertain the thought of having a friend.)

* * *

><p>It carries on for three days. Three days does Brittany remain bedbound, catching fitful pockets of sleep, drenching her night-garb and keeping her pale skin a flushed red. Three days for Santana to coax herbs down her throat and manage to communicate with Mikhail through awkward hand gestures, giving him her first genuine smile in thanks when he returns with baskets full of fresh plants. In Northvegia they had never taken much stock in herbal remedies, but after watching his friend breathe easier once she has chewed and swallowed those strange, patched leaves, maybe there is some merit after all.<p>

The first day that she can open her eyes without something throbbing a beat through her skull, she is alone. The air is hot, stifling even, blanketing her form. An empty cup lays by her dangling hand.

She mumbles to herself, rolling in the sheets to glance upwards at the slit of light beaming through the chimney. Why is it so bright? Has she fallen asleep in the middle of the day? Her palms attempt to grind the sleep from her eyes but it's like somebody has permanently stuffed them full of grit, sharp and heavy, causing them to water. Brittany's chest aches but it feels oddly light - she breathes in and whistles but does not rattle.

"S'ntana?" Through her thick tongue the syllables are rough, joining together half way and forgetting vowels. The priestess is nowhere in sight, her bed in disarray, staff missing and Sandalio gone.

Shuffling come from the cooking fire followed by the clinking of iron mugs. "Not Santana, _vetur barn. _Simply an old fool."

With difficulty, Brittany throws herself out of bed to land an ungraceful heap upon the wooden floor. A rich laugh floats through to her ears and she grins through her fatigue, squealing roughly when a pair of grizzled arms sweep her into the air. "Grandfather!" She laughs in a way that quickly disintegrates into a plethora of dry coughs. He pats her back but his wizened face is stretched in amusement, easily cradling her lean mass in his embrace.

"Now that already sounds better. Worth all the faces from what she's been feeding you, yeah?"

Her face retains the crimson hue, and not from exertion. "You saw that?"

Her grandfather simply grins in that wolfish way her family has inherited, petting back her tangled hair. With his everlasting presence she feels rejuvenated, objects descending from the soupy fog that had clouded her consciousness for the past days, bright and clear through the small sliver of sunlight. Even as her hand passes over her face and she feels the residue of dried sweat, it is welcome.

His grip loosens and she squirms out of his grasp, delighted at how the world stays below her feet without pitching haphazardly. She must smell horrible. The vikings pride themselves on their cleanliness, so much more than all the other cultures, and it makes part of her recoil to imagine what her odour must be through her blocked nose. Even now, in this very room, it must be poisoning the place.

Grandfather watches her bring a slim wrist up to her nose, annoyance blanketing her features when congestion stops any attempts at scenting the skin - believe him, she doesn't want to know.

"Trust me, girl. You smell something awful. A bath is in order as soon as you possibly can afford it." Her cheeks puff up into a scowl. "I don't smell that bad."

His smile worries her.

Grandfather (known to the rest of the town as Yngvarr Ketilsson, his legacy carried upon the winds as the Hammer of the North for his overwhelming strength and stark-white hair) had but two children with his wife in his lifetime. One was a boy, stout and quiet, promising in all the right ways. The other was a girl, loud and inquisitive, charming her way into the hearts of men and women alike to get away with her mischievous deeds. both of them grew into fine adults, spreading their influence in unique ways.

He buried his only girl before she was even with child, but after Brittany had been brought into their lives.

Those responsible had the full weight of winter's wrath thrust upon them; a grieving father with the power of mountains, a devastated brother linked to their gods and an infuriated husband with seasoned warriors at his fingertips. Nothing stood a chance in their morbid splendour. Together they had eradicated the force from the face of their land, but the scars remain. (Though Brittany and his daughter are not biologically related, he swears he sees her in the slant of his grandchild's eyes and the kind spread of her smile.

Brittany has but one pleasant memory of her. As she starved on the streets, cold and hungry and so, so scared, somebody with a halo of golden hair picked her up and cradled her close and whispered _mine_ into her ear. She had clutched to the stranger's apron with weak hands and swore never to let go.

She did.)

Even as he passes her another cup of steaming tea, studying her hands wrap around the mug carefully, steam seeping into her pores, he watches. She's grown up so fast but still has a ways to go, stuck in an awkward phase where her limbs are long and lanky and her hips narrow but lithe in her own alluring fashion. Brittany resembles little the wives of the great warriors; angles where they are curves, muscle where they are soft. He can't help but see the subtle but undoubtedly male way she sits with her legs farther apart and elbows resting on her bent knees. If she'd have it her way, she would be wife for nobody.

"What are you doing here, Afi?" She mumbles around the lip of her cup. Rivulets dribble down her chin, swiped away with a wipe of her wrist.

His eyes, usually of blinding glaciers, warm and melt like summer snow. Though she's taller than him now, he can't help but see her as that tiny little girl. "I'm not allowed to visit my kin when she's been keeping the whole village awake with her snoring?"

Brittany's skin, cooler since the height of her fever, flushes once more.

"It wasn't that bad..."

"Tell that to Mikhail. He watched the priestess try and force things down your throat so you'd quiet." One of her hands smothers her face in embarrassment but her fingers peek out through the cracks, bitten nails leaving faint marks against her pale flesh. "Is she well?"

"Tired, I presume. I've heard she's been out all times of the day talking to the Iberians in port. She seems to take fun in teasing one of the boys senseless."

Brittany snorts and cradles the warm cup closer to her chest. "Have you met her?"

Grandfather sighs and reclines, his massive bulk spreading along the stool he occupies. Every time he had attempted to catch glimpse of the elusive southerner she had slipped through his fingers like fine sand, leaving nothing but the whisper of her presence. It is clear she hasn't yet learned to trust in the people here, eyes dark and guarded and deep.

"No. I have a feeling she's avoiding me, like all else in the town."

Brittany thinks of hesitant smiles and delicate wrists. "She's nervous, is all. Large crowds don't sit well with her, nor strangers. Once she realizes who you are to me she'll be better."

His brows scrunch. "How do you know?"

She simply shrugs, careful not to spill her drink. "I just do." Like she'd known after Santana had blasted a hole in her father's ship, or when they stood at the slave-market, hot and uncomfortable. It comes naturally to her, like breathing or fighting.

His gaze is steady but there's an underlying current that makes her frown, clutching tighter to her warm mug. Heat buffets her eyes and makes her blink, suddenly wishing for the splendid warmth of the sun. "There's something else, isn't there?" She mumbles into her drink, spilling drops that slip down her jaw. They can never hide too long from her - their posture is wrong and entirely off-center, their face holding a veil of secrecy. Brittany knows, down in the pit of her stomach, when they choose to keep the truth.

And that's okay, really. Some secrets aren't meant to ever see the light of day.

"Aye," he sighs, rubbing a massive hand down his face. "I might have you out on patrol soon enough. The villagers are getting restless. There are reports of _draugar_ wandering at night, taking cattle and hunting children. I think it's all a load of horseshit, but they seem to believe."

Brittany swallows nervously. She remembers the horror stories the older boys spoke of around the fires - horrible things with rotting flesh and deadened eyes, their breath the rattle of old chains. Bodies without a soul, they said, searching for purpose they've been denied. They hate everything, but loathe the living the most - hands as strong as bears can tear an unsuspecting warrior limb from limb. _Folk tales_, grumble the adults, but she knows how some of them bless themselves after such dark talk. Risen up either of their own injustices or by the hand of a seiðr-user, weaving the blackest magic to give them the mockery of life.

Shapeshifters, deceivers. One knows them from the foul stench and lumbering gait. Though dead and stiff, they are surprisingly fast and overpower many a warrior before even realizing what sort of plague has descended upon them. Brittany isn't near strong enough to ward off one of their kin.

"Why me?"

Either he doesn't detect the faint tremor in her voice, or discards it. "Don't tell me you're afraid of a few corpses, girl! They aren't nothing but myths." Myths well spoken, for almost all of the villagers ward themselves discreetly when they now venture out into the dark. Day is a time of prosperity, but night - oh, foul night, the foreigners know not of what the townspeople fear and wander out into the shadows with a sheathed sword and a smile to never return. (At times, another one is claimed to be spotted with the same frozen grin.)

_Sometimes myths can be more frightening than the reality_.

"The centaurs were supposed to be myths."

Grandfather pauses and peers at her curiously. "The centaurs were always the exception," he informs her, "as were dragons. Those are all but gone now, though. Why the hesitation?"

The blonde closes her eyes against the headache she feels coming, curling herself up tighter on her stool. "I don't get understand why I have to walk around in the black searching for them when we can just wait for them to come to us." She says, voice small. "I... I don't like dead things. They're horrible."

He smiles in cautious amusement at her antics. "You see dead things all the time, Bretagne. You've made them."

"That's some of the problem."

The door creaks and moments later she's rushed by a sleek black pelt, all scrabbling claws and excited yelps. Brittany laughs and tilts her face up to let Sandalio lick the dried salt from her skin, paws perched on her curled knees, her own hands stroking along his murmurs to him in gibberish as his warm and sloppy tongue swipes haphazard patterns across her jaw - he only responds to Santana's native language and not the Norse that assaults him in his day to day adventuring. His warmth is comforting, as is the damp and musky smell of the river threaded into his fur.

"Sentarse, Sandalio." Comes Santana's distracted voice, floating over to them from the entryway. He ignores her to instead wriggle happily against the blonde's legs. She has been mostly unresponsive over the past few days, managing nothing more than a weak ear-scratch when his head nuzzled under her limp and open palm.

The darker girl finally appears in the doorway and freezes when she catches sight of the massive man sitting with his blind-white hair gathered into a long ponytail. Even though he is undoubtedly aged from the frozen winters his shoulders roll with muscular strength, skin marred with scars and still-open scratches from what she can see emerging from his broad tunic. Icy eyes turn to her and she's surprised at the lack of discipline, simply sporting an amused smile at the girl-warrior who coos to the dog in a high-pitched squeal. She looks better - something simple that fills Santana with relief - with colour returning to her skin and free of sickly sweat.

They remain in an awkward limbo. Brittany, unaware of the tension, glances up with a smile despite the muffled coughs emerging from her lips.

Santana sweeps to her side with a muttered word to her hound. Her fingers press against the now-damp skin of her jaw and lift the warrior's head, twisting it this way and that, laying a hesitant palm against her chest to feel the jump of her lungs. Head now clear, Brittany frowns at how her skin explodes into shivers where the priestess touches.

The soft pads of her fingers splay out, testing the resistance of her inhales. Santana is pleased at the lack of wet noises she hears, evident by the small grin curled over her lips. "Okay?" Brittany smiles in return - eyes lighting so very bright - and nods furiously. "Okay."

Her hand draws away. The blonde feels an acute sense of loss for something she hasn't found.

Grandfather clears his throat and the walls that had temporarily loosened batter themselves back standing, higher than ever. She pivots sharply to meet him. A battle of the wills ensues - neither of them wish to look away, polar meeting desert. He bores into her in a way that makes Santana inherently uncomfortable, like she is unravelling without knowing and he can witness it all.

After a moment, his cracked lips spread. "Völva," he mutters with his own brand of respect, sweeping down low and letting his braided beard dangle precariously close to the flames, "my name is Yngvarr Ketilsson, afi Bretagne í."

Santana blinks owlishly, eyeing the large man with a sense of trepidation. She hates how her muscles bunch at every voice that comes towards her. Hates feeling so uneasy in a town that she doesn't seem to be able to escape anytime in the near future. Brittany's posture is languid and relaxed, however, looking up at her with an emotion she can't place and a lazy smile. She scans their features and notes that while their faces hold no physical markers, they both wear their expressions like words on parchment: stark and easily read if you knew where to look.

"I am Santana Lopez of Botaya, priestess of Ataecina."

As the name of her Goddess passes her lips he seems to perk, taking in perhaps for the first time the symbol dabbed upon her forehead. The little hammer jingles at his chest and he smiles warmly. Santana has the distinct impression of mountain peaks melting into free flowing rivers.

(He feels like a father figure she's never had.)

"Welcome, Santana." Her face remains impassive, but her eyes flicker. "I need to go, Bretagne. Things to stop your father from doing." He reaches over to press his dry lips against her forehead - she ducks her frame and leans into the embrace. Though technically he holds little sway over the council in terms of power, all listen to his advice. Wisdom that has gotten them through famines and fatigue is always welcome at the tables. Grandfather is a kind man, even if that doesn't seem to show on the spread of his skin.

His boots thud heavily on the flooring until they disappear out of earshot and they are alone. A silence fills the space, each of the girls pretending they aren't looking at the other when they so obviously are. Santana catches her eye and Brittany's skin burns, turning away to fiddle with Sandalio's ears.

They remain silent for a few moments - Santana shuffling through her medicine horn, Brittany scratching absently at the dog's head. This lack of communication is new and unwelcome. They are always talking, whether it be through simple vowels or silent touch.

Eventually Brittany gets up deliberately, wandering over to her broken spear and running her fingers gently along the shattered shaft. It's splintered through - she needs to go to Anvindr to have it fixed. Her heart pangs awkward and heavy at the thought of the other boy but she shakes it off hastily before Santana can read her features. "I need to go."

At Santana's frown, she mimes banging them together. After a moment's deliberation, the priestess wanders over to her unkempt bed and plants herself, facefirst, into the messy sheets, giving a tired wave in acknowledgement. Brittany mumbles a guilty apology at Santana's exhaustion but she's steadfastly ignored, the form in the small bed burrowing further in an attempt to block out the noise. She simply stares at the girl's curled body, absently tracing the curve of her spine, until Santana's shoulders stiffen with discomfort and she finally realizes what she's doing. Cheeks heating, Brittany flies out of the room faster than her legs wish to carry her.

* * *

><p>The anvil rings loud as the hammer strikes down, clanking against the red-hot metal. The sword he's holding steady radiates scorching heat close to his glove-clad hands but his aim is true. He takes his time to shape the metal, careful in each of his blows, narrowed eyes stinging from the dripping sweat that evades the cloth wound about his forehead. Anvindr was never the largest man - still isn't, despite the long hours that have bulked up his biceps but wasted his legs. Some believed he could never make it as a blacksmith by his stature and desire to always meticulously plan out. <em>Blacksmithing requires a firm hand and a good eye, boy!<em> they had laughed when he first revealed his ideas, _of which you have neither!_

Ah, but didn't he prove them wrong?

He sighs and leaves it to cool overnight, to strengthen the metal before having to reheat it. This hadn't been his life when he was younger, on the other side of the sword and as graceful as the winter snow. He had worn the scale-mail of his fallen enemies that shimmered and overlapped like cobalt dragon scales, bringing his eyes to a burn, catching and making him as deep as the sea. Somehow he doubts he'd fit in it now - his arms are too big and his shoulders bulkier, settling wrong even as it hangs too large on his narrow hips. Fitting, in a way. Shedding his old skin to come out as... what? Certainly not the warrior he used to be.

One missed parry for it to all come undone.

He heaves himself from his sitting position, hands scrabbling along the walls for support. Instantly the ache in his leg starts to make itself known, humming in his warped bones, firing along the ruined muscle. Shedding his gloves he takes the cane in the palm of his hand, planting it on the dirt floor, wincing when he puts pressure to stand upright. Walking has become an agony for the adolescent, but what hurts most are the pitying glances he always procures when he ventures out of the shop. To save himself heartache, he rarely does.

Some say the children are scared of him. The angry tilt to his lips and the bitterness in his eyes more frightening than any ghost. _This is why you have to train_, say the men, _so that you don't wind up like Anvindr_. It could be worse - he hears from other kingdoms that they shun cripples, deem them bad luck and poor omens.

A knock on the doorframe. His eyes flutter over to the figure perched in his entrance. He'd recognize that hair even in Valhalla (not like he's going to get there now) and the body that accompanies it, lithe and spring-soft in the cotton tunic. They used to train together, him and Bretagne. He grew proficient with a sword while her lengthy range made her lethal with a spear. Side by side they were the mounting terror of the raids, always having each other's back, never missing a stroke or a lunge as they severed retaliation and returned with the spoils.

"You're better, then?" He asks, voice light as he sets himself down on a different stool with a muffled hiss. The blacksmith hates her seeing him like this, weak and broken, so eliminates the biggest sign by stashing away the cane.

Earlier on, he wanted to go visit, but paled at the hill that would require climbing.

It's been two years since he's seen her home.

"I am," she confirms, sweeping over to engulf him in a hug, "and thank Odinn, too. I thought I was going to burn up and die."

He snorts though it's never her intent to exaggerate. Bretagne makes him hurt in all the best ways, like he could fold himself up in the creases of her words and dissipate into nothingness. She was beside him every step of the way when his wound closed up but never _healed_, when he'd scream as he'd fall over doing things as simple as walking across the room, when the other warriors went out to fight and he was stuck with the women and the children.

_Alone._

But he doesn't hold her in ill regard that she got away without injury. He wouldn't wish this on her - he'd take another blow just as heavy if that meant keeping her upright and able.

(They were to be engaged once. Betar thought him a brilliant man - kind, caring, competent; able to remind her when she forgot but never growing angry or frustrated - when they were children learning together. The two had never thought themselves like that, but she had told him once she didn't want a man and perhaps that just made her all the more desirable but unattainable. And maybe, just maybe, that was when he first started to fall in love with Bretagne Piersson.

Then the accident happened and these dreams were to never be realized. Her father is still apologetic, but Anvindr understands.)

He reaches for a knife he's working on, beginning to form into something lethal, the file working away at its rough patches. She sits down next to him and props her chin above her fist, watching the sparks fly roughly from the blade. They work in a different kind of silence that her and Santana do, one born of a lifetime of knowing and reading the other's movements.

The tremble in her fingers is minute, almost imperceptible. Behind him, he draws the remains of his day meal and offers it to her.

"No," she pushes it away, "it's fine. You don't have to."

"You mustn't have eaten much in the past days, Bretagne." He chides gently. "I know you. You can't stop eating."

Her cheeks cover again in a pale blush as her stomach rumbles its agreement. She hesitates before taking the dried fish gingerly and nibbling on it, eyes casting to him every so often. At his stern eyebrow she simply sighs before stuffing it into her mouth with much more fervour.

They share a moment with nothing but the whistling of his file along the metal. "What got you so sick? You were fine not even a week ago."

Brittany, manners forgotten, chews thoughtfully. "I have a feeling Santana thinks it's all the training I've been doing. She's been giving me the evil eye for waking her up at dawn with all my shuffling." She whines afterwards, "It's not my fault Sandalio decides to splay himself out like a carpet sometimes. I don't see all that fur."

His hand stutters momentarily before it regains its purchase. Anybody else wouldn't have noticed - but Brittany is certainly not anybody else. "She still sleeps with you after these weeks?"

An amused smile crosses her lips at the tone he uses. "Of course, silly man. Where would she sleep, in the barn?" She swallows her mouthful and reaches eagerly for another. "That would be mighty unkind of me."

He scowls. "It would sit right with an animal of her kind." Almost immediately he regrets the muttered utterance - she turns to him with disbelieving eyes.

Some part of him wants to backtrack, but he knows it would fool neither of them. His opinion is concrete ever since a sandy warrior drove a scimitar through the meat of his thigh.

"They're not all like that!" Brittany frowns, upset. She feels a need to defend the other girl in her absence, thinking of her healing hands and guarded eyes, the small gestures of concern as she brushes the backs of her palms to check for fever and the annoyed flush on her cheeks when the blonde once again neglects a shirt. Santana is made up of things much greater than the colour of her skin.

Living in Kaupang, one has since gotten used to all manners of people rushing in and out of the docks. Mikhail was her first early exposure to diversity that just kept coming. Sometimes she likes to simply sit out on the unoccupied pier and watch them go about their day until she's shooed away like a common brat.

"You don't know that!" He argues back, hand grinding harder on the metal. "All she does is snap at people and grumble when they ask for her help. What does she even accomplish? Nothing that a housewife couldn't, herbs don't do much for injuries."

Her expression deepens. "I know you took poppy seeds for your leg. Didn't they help?"

"That's not the point."

"Then what is?"

Anvindr clenches his jaw so tight his teeth groan under the strain. _I should be the one laying with you, _whispers his mind. He knows it's foolish to be so jealous of a woman - a woman! the tricks they play - but the darker parts of him can't help but hiss their discontent, pent up and enraged from months upon months in this broken body. What right does she have? To take advantage of her kind heart, to milk her for compassion and resources, to get away with doing things regular people would be beaten for? A mark on her forehead means _nothing_ - can she give in form of meals? Safety? Why shelter her when she does nothing but murmur what could be curses in her blasted tongue, silky smooth and shadowy that winds through the creases of your mind and lingers?

The file digs so hard into the yet unrefined metal that it groans and snaps under the strain, clattering down at their feet. He holds the tang disbelievingly in his hand, glaring down at the now jagged metal. Brittany's hand floats over to rest gently over his own. "It's okay. I understand. You don't have to talk about it."

He deflates under her gentle words. It's not like he actively tries to hate - it just grows and swells and growls until he can't think of anything else but the pain of the sword.

Gulping through his nose, he notices for the first time the broken spear she holds by her side. "What happened to it?" His voice is rough and uneven but calm in a way it wasn't a moment before. Brittany hesitantly gives it over, shame colouring her cheeks as his fingers run over the splintered wood.

It was her first given weapon when she was but fourteen, the ornate carvings on the tip of swirling dragons, mouths open, twining round and round the dark metal. Their tails join together at the end of the head to make way for the sturdy ash that stretches just under six feet. Betar had gifted it to her in celebration for her first successful raid without any help - anticipating her growth, he had made the thing finish at roughly six foot and a couple inches, too big for her growing frame. Luckily he had been right and her limbs had continued to expand until it became her extra limb. It is rare to see such a well-worn shaft crack like it did, shattering in all directions.

The girl-warrior shifts awkwardly in her seat, bringing one hand to the back of her neck and rubbing the skin there. "I didn't get out the way in time and one of them grabbed it real tight. I'm not as strong as him, I guess. Wasn't thinking right and pulled... there's your result." She knows she has a tendency to act before she thinks - constant blabbering of mythological creatures and muddled words tangled together in an incomprehensible web are proof enough of that.

But there's something else to the picture. "It just... broke?" An eyebrow raises incredulously from under his bandana. "You're too careful for that."

"They didn't want to let go, you know how they are."

Heat bubbles under his collar. "They broke it_ on purpose?_"

She sighs and lays her hands upon his shoulders. "Please, don't get upset. It's not worth it." His temper is a dangerous one - it comes out in a steady stream of hidden transactions and sly evils rather than an explosive bang. "I'd rather none of them hurt."

Anvindr scowls though the cogs already churn within his skull, lighting strategies and possibilities of success and drawing them together with what little he already knows. Brittany may not be a vindictive creature but he thrives on revenge.

However, she _knows _him. "_Vinur_, don't do that. I hate it when you scheme, it only makes everything worse."

His fingers play a disjointed rhythm upon the splintered shaft. "You can't just sit around idly and let them beat you into the ground!"

"And what would I do, fight back? They only find different ways to try! I've tried to earn their respects - I'm only going to get it if I prove to them that I'm better. You can't do that with trickery or shadows. They only listen to skill."

To avoid her gaze, he focuses on unpinning the metal head from the shaft. "You're better than all of them, you know." He says softly, laying the intricate metal down and scattering the broken ash on the far corner of the floor. "You always have been."

Her eyes do that _thing_ where they become impossibly kind and pliant - like burning metal only quieter but just as bright - and her smile is glimmering enough to let the sun hide away in shame. His whole body shivers in embarrassment and liquid heat so he takes the first thing he can find - the tip of her spear - and rolls in over and over in his hands to mask his fidgeting.

"I can fix it," says the blacksmith, "it won't take very long. We've got some strange white wood from the East that's flexible but so strong you could take ten boys to it and nothing would happen. It'll be about a forearm's length over your head because you're so tall - when did you get so tall?" He doesn't chance to look up at the blonde, now sporting a look of amusement. "And if you want I can make it all pretty, decorate it and wrap some nice rawhide so the grip will be firm, easier for you not to lose your head when you go out in battle-"

Lithe fingers lay upon his lips and his mouth snaps shut with an audible click, freezing his constant, mindless rotation of the metal. "You say _I _ramble." Teases Brittany, gaze crinkled around the eyes with mirth. He grins back, wide, almost shuddering when her hand grazes his jaw before falling away.

"You do. I had to listen to you talk about that unicorn for countless oar-strokes."

"He was very real!" She huffs out an indignant breath, blowing a strand of hair from her eyes. "I don't know why people don't believe me. I found his droppings and everything. You know it's unicorn droppings when they glow."

He humours her - what else can you do? - and nods sagely.

Somebody calls to her - undoubtedly her father, his booming voice tearing across the still spring morning - and she smiles apologetically, turning on her heels. Dust floats up and nips at her ankles, adding to the mess already upon her stained skin. "I'll see you come next morn!" With that she begins to jog away, squinting and ever mindful of her weakened lungs.

He watches until she fades out around the bend of the dirt road, metal head still clutched firmly between his scarred hands.

* * *

><p><strong>Translations!<strong>

**Ég er þér því miður þurfti að koma út á þessu snemma: I'm sorry you had to come out this ****early.**

** Dejar: Leave**


	6. Chapter 6

[A/N: Nothing much to say today. A massive thank you to everybody who reviewed last chapter - I found myself a Spanish beta! On that note, I still need a regular beta, so if any of you would be so kind. Any mistakes are mine because of that. We have launched out of the introduction and begin to fight into the story... I hope you enjoy!]

* * *

><p>Chapter 6<p>

**give me something**

**I need something for protection**

** May 23, 912**

"Leave us." The command, soft but stern, floats across the bustling town square and the boys under that blanket lift their heads, eyes wide and cautious. Brittany holds their gaze, stance tense, lanky arms hovering awkwardly by her side. Her skin is winter-white but her tunic spring-green, the contrast bold. From under her furrowed eyebrows, her eyes glitter. (The priestess has done her job. No longer do dark shadows circle her face, nor does exhaustion seem to leak from her pores. This new-found energy has given her strength, which in turn grants her agility. She has learned to listen attentively to what Santana says.)

They hover for a moment before darting off to their mothers. Children no older than ten, taunting what they have difficulties comprehending. Santana scowls but there is gratitude written in the lines of her face that Brittany strives to understand. "I'm fine." She grumbles in restrained irritation, glaring at the youngsters as they leave, accent thick and still troubling.

Brittany simply smiles. "I know."

Time has been a mixed blessing for the darker girl. With more efforts to prove her worth, some have begun to accept her presence her as a respected, welcome thing. She has gained quite a few of the warriors' favours after a rousing episode of song that left them in a frenzy, dancing and swinging and laughing while her fingers flew over a lyre and the musicians accompanied her with fleet, reverberating tunes. Brittany recognized the beginnings what could eventually become _galdr_ rushing through her words, altering their thoughts, but chose not to comment and simply enjoyed the fray.

But with acceptance comes rejection. Many of the younger males (Brittany sneers to call them as such, much preferring the term _kamphundr_ - carrion eater, for their intents reek) have grown restless; gravitating close, interrupting her work, calling out to her in words they know she doesn't understand. Wandering hands lead to bruised fingers, but several have still shown up with a sly grin and a leather collar.

All have been turned away with an angry snarl and bared teeth.

"They think slave." Santana frowns and brings her cloak about herself, feathers flaring out to flatten like an oil-slick across her back. In this near-summer sun her gaze is sharp and bottomless, reflecting back with brown so dark it could be pitch. Her staff, ever-present, flashes out before her to dig into the drying ground. Brittany walks alongside, content in the simple heat and her companion's movements, smiling as Sandalio wiggles his way between the two to lope along beside them. She catches the barest glimpse of Santana rolling her eyes but curving her lips up in the beginnings of her own _brosa._

"Do you?" Brittany responds, eyebrows arching up delicately, fingering the hilt of her axe. It's not been lost on her how the priestess goes out of her way to avoid the slave-house, as if one would pull her in and not let her leave. Nor how she attempts to plead with the blond that has the angry-eyes and the sharp tongue with placating touches, stroking at the thin strap along his neck soothingly until he melts into her embrace and mumbles something that couldn't quite be classified as an apology. "And it's they think _I'm_ a slave, Santana."

Santana discards her correction, but Brittany knows she's taken it into account. "I what?"

"Think you're a slave."

She falls silent, dredging up a conversation with Noach she had that must've been at least a moon ago - oh, how time passes under the watchful eye of the North - and chews her full bottom lip anxiously. Santana _knows_ (down to her very bones) that Brittany doesn't view her as such, content to let her roam free. But the others? Not so much. And herself?

She doesn't know how to answer that - no matter how hard she tries, she feels trapped. Defenceless. A little child made of glass waiting for the inevitable breaking point. Their stares shake her, regardless of the face she puts on. Santana dislikes being afraid, but finds herself in a state of constant paranoia.

"Si." It is whisper-soft, leaving her lips in a dry mumble that makes Brittany strain to pick up the tone. She knows the word that would let the warrior understand, hovering on the tip of her tongue, but she swallows it down harshly with a faint scowl. Fragility is not something Santana does well. Attempting to tilt her face away, she meets blue for a split second and forgets that they need no sound to communicate - that moment is all the confirmation Brittany needs. Her face wavers and falls, flickering through a myriad of emotions before glossing over into that blank, expressionless mask that Santana recognizes from her confrontations with the other adolescents. Brittany forcefully turns her attention elsewhere.

Her spear thumps gently as it hits her back. Repaired and reworked, the wave-white of the shaft glows in the streaming sunlight. Now, the dragons seem to extend, swirling along the metal with their tails writhing and curving onto the beginnings of the wood, black against white. Her new reach has caused its share of injuries, but the tense of her firm biceps betray her budding prowess. Mastery over your own body is like a river, Brittany thinks. It starts itself out as a stream, warbling and nubile, easily disrupted and broken. As time passes it grows and flows, creates niches in the earth, straining until it bursts at the seams with rushing power. (Maybe if she gave her river to Santana, she wouldn't be so scared anymore? Now that her face has returned from its gaunt, hungry look, there is another type of worry that constantly eats around her eyes.)

They crunch down the dirt path, silent and contemplative. Every so often Brittany points out an object and coaxes Santana into repeating, slow and steady, weaving constant but never meaningless syllables between them. Her muscles relax under the sun. If she can tune out the chatter of the natives, it almost feels like her little home on the outskirts of town.

Brittany nervously traces a hand upon the exotic wood as they curve down towards the mead hall. Proud amongst the other uniform buildings, it is draped in an array of colourful shields and banners, tattered and bloodied from countless battles. Smoke curls languidly in wisps from the height of the roof - door swung back, one can see the bustle within as people wander back and forth, all looking rather important in their bright tunics and gleaming weapons that sit pretty by their thighs. Attached to this are two separate longhouses, proud and regal. One is dressed in red, the other blue. While the ocean-stained holds round shields and sharpened swords, the blood-tainted hefts axes and horns of countless animals cleaved from their flesh.

They halt at the entryway - Brittany makes to go into the mead-hall where Santana hovers by the blue-tinged longhouse. Together they share an awkward smile. "Now?" asks Santana in time-proven tradition, voice not betraying the hope that seeps from her eyes. In return the warrior shakes her head, scratching carefully at her neck in apology. "No, I'm sorry. He still hates me. Maybe next time?" The priestess understands little but comprehends the regret in her words, nodding once in farewell before stepping into the gloom.

Betar's home is sprawling and open, wide spaces with soil flooring and great wooden walls. Pelts of mighty animals line the ground - bears, wolves, auroch - some covering doorways to where adjoining rooms lead. Passing a few slaves to which she bids a hurried hello, Santana makes her way through the warm kitchen housed at the back, hidden by a half-wall lined with steaming plates and bowls. She grabs a small loaf of warm bread and tears it in two, bringing the food up to her nose and inhaling the sweet scent. Before anybody can see her she skirts away, smirking as Sandalio is snapped at in irritated Norse, brushed away with the swipe of a broom.

This place is almost as familiar as Brittany's own home. She finds that she's grown to like the odd building more than this magnificent one, however - feeling so together with the elements is freeing.

She winds through the hallways and murmurs under her breath, seeing the beads light with an unearthly glow. It still amazes her at times, and she has to remind herself not to stare at the light as she treks through and threatens to become lost. Her dark fingers turn purple from the amethysts, eyes reflecting the lapis glimmer. Some with lanterns travel around her form with cautious gazes. It barely bothers her.

Eventually she emerges at the end into a small room, dark and cramped. Bunks line the walls with small pine chests upon the ends of each one. A small wood stove huffs and puffs away as the heat of the sun has yet to leak itself into the space. Forms shuffle around, lithe and ragged, mumbling amongst themselves. They hardly notice her presence - that suits her just fine.

Santana approaches one of the farthest bunks cautiously, feet sliding soundlessly upon the ground, light as not to wake her. Time passes quickly for all except the injured here, confined to the beds with little to do except wait to be healed. Weeks ago she had convinced Brittany to buy the wounded mother and her kin despite the backlash that action had received (she had stood beside the blonde, clinging to her wrist, flinching at every thunderous crack of her father's voice that rolled through the air like swelling clouds) and now she slumbered without bloody dreams. Despite being mostly confined to her bed, she has proved her worth with the dexterity of her fingers, mending broken fabrics and re-working rawhide onto the weapons. The wives have sworn by her techniques, and as a result been allowed to stay.

"Priestess!" Calls a warm voice, drawing a smile to Santana's lips. She carries herself to the bed and crouches down, propping her staff against the wall to cast some light upon the figure. Blonde hair glows dimly in the resulting wash and skin devoid of sun meets her searching fingertips, lines weathered and deep. The boy's mother grins the best she can and reaches one thin hand to cup Santana's cheek - she leans slightly into the warmth she provides while tracking her expressions. She feels a fondness for the woman, attempting her best to nurse her back to health for the month that has passed.

But she is not a worker of miracles. Nothing she can do is capable of stitching muscle together after such a grievous injury.

"Hello there, my friend. How are you today? It's a shame you can't venture out, the sun is rather nice on your shoulders. Would do wonders for your complexion." The older woman smiles as Santana jabbers on in her own language, gently tugging on her apron until she willingly lifts her arms and allows the priestess to unbutton it. "More movement, I see. That's a good sign. Last I checked you were barely able to move them without wincing." Perhaps it's to comfort her as much as the other - the quiet whispering of the thralls brings her little strength.

"Come on, shoulders out." Santana coaxes her into threading her arms out of her sleeves, sheet pulled up modestly to her breasts, heavy and full after children.

She tries not to think of the infant killed in the fray.

The bandages bound across her torso are tight and dirtied after days of use, curling around the edges and green with knitbone. As more and more is unwound the striations on her pale flesh become clear, angry red against peach and deep. One hand splayed on her torso she gets her to lean forward the best she can, peeling the compress from her sticky flesh and biting her lip harshly at the wound presented to her.

Though the spear must not have been wide it struck deep, burying itself through her back and lodging. The cut itself has somewhat healed, aided by Santana's thick stitches, drawing together of its own accord to close the gaping hole. Yet the withdrawal of the weapon must have been hurried, for the metal twisted to gouge and cause massive damage along the sides, muscle torn and ragged to be shredded beyond repair. Where a portion of flesh should be is simply a chasm. Unnatural, weak. She'll never have full possession over her arm again.

It still weeps and Santana fishes around in her pouch to pull out clumps of damp moss, right hand pressing comfortingly against her breastbone as her left cleans away the fluid with sure, careful strokes, mumbling words of apology as the mother hisses and whimpers in pain.

It's a shame Brittany doesn't yet want to visit. She could use an extra pair of hands - perhaps she doesn't like the sight of gore? Strange, considering her chosen path.

Once the area is devoid of filth she brings out the new bandages and lays the fresh knitbone along the length, pungent smell filling the small space. She feels she owes it to the woman to ease what ails her, stroking, channelling the best she can through the motions to lessen her discomfort. Eventually the compress is tight, bandages snug once more, clinging to her frail chest with a vengeance. She is given a weak smile through the sweat that dots the woman's brow - her skin is pale and sickly, ribs heaving under her thin slip. Yet she looks at Santana the way only believers look at their gods - with gratitude and utmost privilege. It makes her flesh crawl with a mixture of discomfort and pleasure.

"Thank you." She mumbles, out of breath. Santana presses her own waterskin (she's gotten one after continuously stealing her roommate's) to her trembling lips and the woman swallows greedily, flinching as each breath sends a stab of pain through her back.

It is a common sight - Santana elbow deep in whatever wound presented to her, brows furrowed and lips parted in concentration. She doesn't want to solely be a healer, no; serving her Goddess is her primary goal and dream. If She wishes to guide Santana's hands by being the soothing winds upon their woes, who is she to say otherwise? As long as her Mother approves, she will gladly (under the veneer of vexation, surely) carry through.

Sandalio snuffles his way into the mother's palm and she smiles brighter, bringing her calloused hands to bury itself into the dog's fur. Away from conversation she is brought under scrutiny by Santana's searching eyes, tracing the sharp line of her jaw and the indent of her collar where the skin is stretched too tight over the bones. Winters are hard on the northmen, but it is May - things have achieved full bloom in a plethora of colours, bursting forth in vibrant yellows and browns and sacred green that have accepted the sowing and begun to grow, budding plants that will yield grain and leaf imperative to their well-being come the autumn equinox. Already certain berries are flourishing with their first harvest that lends itself to the flavour of the meats, battered into the fibers and tangy on the tongue. Why, then, is she so thin?

The priestess fumbles around in her pockets and brings the broken roll of bread, offering one piece inquisitively to her companion. She smiles with crinkles around her eyes and nibbles thoughtfully, humming almost as if listening when Sandalio barks and whines in his own little language. With a sigh she breaks off a chunk and waves it in front of his nose - it is gone before she can blink.

Her companion opens her mouth to say something but cuts herself off, eyes widening slightly just before something tackles her from behind. Santana yelps and sprawls forward on the bed, panic surging through her body to let her palms tingle and glow a faint blue. Upon the bed, the mother strains herself to reach but hisses and pulls back when her wound denies her. However, something is snapped with reprimand - mere moments later she can push herself upwards, right into gleaming hazel eyes.

"Priestess!" He shouts with much enthusiasm, teeth sparkling. He's tried to scratch through his collar again, evident by the red marks on his flesh and the ragged disarray of his nails, skin broken and weeping. Santana tuts under her breath and presses spare knitbone to the gouges, ignoring his plaintive griping.

"Priestess," repeats the boy, jumping up and down despite his mother hushing him, "Þú verður að syngja í kvöld!"

The darker girl pauses and furrows her brow in suspicion. He looks curious, as if he expects an answer.

"What did you say?" She asks in Spanish, seating herself with legs crossed and chin propped against her fist. His fingers flutter in excitement by his sides. "You," he starts, pointing at her form. "syngja," That word she doesn't recognize but he flexes his throat and produces something that could be counted as a note if she strained desperately to hear. (It's obvious he'll never be a skald.) He wants her to sing? There have been stranger requests. Santana readies her tongue but he rapidly shakes his hand from side to side, blond mop flying. "í kvöld!"

Nothing but a blank stare greets him.

Huffing in irritation, he clambers up to the sole, tiny window and cups his hand in a half-crescent to press it against the daylight. In this position with the sunlight setting alight his fair skin, it looks almost like a moon.

Too much like a moon.

"Tonight?" Santana says, tinge of worry creeping into her voice as she motions to her feet. The boy bounces high and nods to her, grinning all the while.

What must she sing? The other skalds have turned up their noses at her, no doubt disappointed she has no great tales of gore and glory to regale them with. Far too young, far too ignorant for such meaty tales such as the ones they crave - but Santana is cunning and knows many from the lands she has travelled. Lullabies from Iberia, rhymes from Britain, shanties from the coasts of the Francia. Her worldly exploits far outweigh whatever gods they could strive to please with their praise and justification of slaughter.

He must see her panicked expression for he smiles, exuberant and carefree, twining his fingers with hers to tug her out of the room. His mother mouths an apology to Santana as they are both carried free of the servant's quarters, barely being able to retrieve her staff - he's surprisingly strong for such a young lad. She tries to keep up, but his mouth is moving five miles a minute, firing off words and syllables she didn't even know fit together. Once they emerge into the main room, she is able to see how they have worked themselves into a frenzy - moving and swirling as one singular being of great efficiency. From the kitchens come a sweltering heat as the women bark orders and wield deadly knives, massive hunks of meat roasting just outside while they bubble pots and slice all sorts of plants. Men transport large benches outside towards the mead hall, huffing and puffing under the strain.

Upon closer inspection it seems they are feeding enough fit for an army. The raids have been quiet as of late; gorged upon the hauls of the tradesmen, they haven't yet found the need to steal for themselves. More goes into a plunder than she originally thought. The men must be fed on the trip, decked in their gear and weapons sharpened, hold ready to keep the thralls.

Musicians mull about upon the sides, tweaking their lyres and tightening their drums. One blows into his set of flutes - a crystalline sound pierces the air and he smiles in triumph. She used to have a set, back in her hometown. Mami taught her how to make the clearest sounds, as if they were crystal struck solidly, fingers manipulating the winds.

On they go until the emerge into the sunlight, blinking rapidly, lips curled in discomfort. They are pushed around by annoyed men wishing to go about their day carrying all sorts of goods in large crates. They don't stay long - she's whisked away by the young boy into the mead hall, weaving through the massive benches until they stand upon a small platform and watching the resulting chaos. "Here!" He says cheerily, setting down on a stool. From up above she can see the whole hall and its occupants, yet out the way of traffic. Perfect for entertainment.

A chill runs down her spine. If this many come tonight, how is she to rouse them all? Surely they don't expect that great a performance?

Raised voices catch her attention. Brittany stands tall, spear towering over her head as she flexes her arms in agitation. Her muscular back clenches with rhythm to her argument. She is tense, wrong - her balance is thrown off and teetering as her father continues to snap at her in hurried Norse. Santana watches the usually brilliant white aura about her taint with crimson the longer they continue what seems to be a brutal verbal spar; servants fluctuate around them, none willing to get so close to the storm.

Somebody tugs on her hand to bring her focus elsewhere. Santana looks down to question the boy who has his brows furrowed into a scowl, eyes trained on the slender blonde girl. "Nenni ekki, hún er ekki þess virði tíma þinn." His words are equally spiteful as what appears to be going on below. Casting one last glance at her (only) friend, she sighs heavily and begins to prepare herself for tonight's trials.

* * *

><p>Night has fallen with a howl of wolves. Winds have cooled and brought heavy clouds, obscuring the ever-lasting moon and her crescent. The stars attempt to shine feebly through the cloak but find no success, swallowed whole in the vortex of the dark. Below, in the valleys between the hills where Kaupang sits, torches cast their own version of starglow upon the wooden structures. Though the streets are quiet with only a few shifting around from one house to another, the main square is another matter entirely.<p>

Enter into the sprawling building and be immersed in the musk of burning wood and smouldering pipes, curling from the lips of old men with beards white as the blind seer's eyes. Their skin turns ruddy with exertion as they joke amongst themselves, shoving and pushing while their plates are fuller than their bellies. Whole pigs are laid out into the table, flesh rubbed with honey, a light gold that glimmers with the catch of the lanterns. Around them are countless dishes of stews and soups, legs and lambs, ribs and flanks. Tankards of mead spill over and slosh against their fingers (in comparison, they too are sloshed.)

Brittany slams down yet another mouthful amidst the shouting of her comrades, coughing once before raising her mug high for their cheers. Everything is spinning delightfully, her extremities fuzzy, chest warm and aching. It's almost like her sickness that had passed a moon prior but without the pain. (Ironically, she still has some semblance of balance.) To her left her father glares through his own conversation but she pays him no heed.

A large gulp settles in her belly at the remembrance of their argument earlier that day. _Why do I need a husband?_ She asks herself with a scoff, _especially when they're all arrogant fools. _Especially the one Betar has been eyeing. She'd rather marry a rock than Finngeirr - they're certainly of the same lineage.

Her eyes - naturally, eventually, continuously - travel to Santana in the corner, a single lantern lighting her skin aglow. In this position, hunched over the lyre, hair framing her face, she seems almost angelic despite the dark of her clothes and complexion. Her lips are parted in a gentle hum as her fingers dance over the strings, deep and rich, spiralling from her chest outwards as all the best things do. Behind her she is accompanied by other skalds, but Brittany hardly notices them against her splendour. When her cloak curls over her shoulders, it gives her the semblance of wings. _Valkyrja. _

Somebody claps her forcefully over her shoulder, almost sending her sprawling into her food. Spluttering her mead, she whips around to come inches close to Sveinn's grinning face. His eyes are glassy and he sways, but she know he means well. Her smile is perhaps a bit skewed in return. "Ya should go dance with 'er, Bretagne."

Her cheeks redden and her gaze shifts unconsciously again towards the priestess. Is she always this obvious in her leering? Such bad manners. He must sense her refusal for he pushes her again, harder, forcing her hands to fly out to the table in order to not be ejected from her seat. "I don't want no excuses. She looks like she needs a break, yeah?"

"She's playing, though."

Sveinn snorts. "Do you want another lad - or lass - to come snap her up? You might want ta' go afore somebody else does. I've seen Klintir's boy lookin' between tha' two of ya like he don't know which to sully first."

It's the drink. It must be. That's the reason why her whole body lights aflame at the mere thought, spreading dark red over her cheeks and into her ears like a growing stain. He _can't_ do that! Brittany can take care of his advances upon her, but he crosses the line at Santana. When she gets up the plates jump back, causing a tremendous clatter. Any other day she'd mutter an embarrassed apology, but she's too incensed to care. "He can't touch her!" Perhaps if she'd drunk a little less mead, she could give a coherent reason. For now, she settles with an angry "He's not allowed!"

_She's mine, _whispers her mind.

"Then go an' get 'er!" Lacking grace, she stumbles from her seat. Behind her, the hoots and hollers grow the closer she nears to the musician's corner, gaze confident along with her stride. Grandfater tries to catch her attention but she waves him off with a flick of her wrist.

However, once she nears the priestess, her temporary confidence seems to fail and she slows. What if Santana doesn't want to dance? What if she doesn't want to dance with _her? _She couldn't stand to rejected in full light of all the other warriors. What if she wants Klintir's son, Finngeirr- no, that's too far. Santana hates him more than anything, sneering at his face and awkward gait whenever he passes by their training area and snapping things undoubtedly mean in her own tongue. She wills her heart to stop pounding out of her chest anxiously - it always seems to act up whenever the other girl is in her presence. At times it feels like she's about to faint. Can you be allergic to another person?

Unbeknownst to the blonde warrior, she has arrived and set to staring at the priestess with a vacant expression. Santana, unnerved by her continuous gaze, stops her playing and shifts in her stool. "Brittany," she says, snapping her fingers in front of her face, "Brittany!"

"Your eyes are like the stones my Mama used to collect," Brittany blurts out when her eyes refocus on Santana's face - a moment later her skin bursts into flames at the random and entirely unwelcome thought that flew far past her filter. The darker girl watches her curiously, patiently, awaiting whatever idea Brittany sees fit to bestow upon her. "Dance?" She sputters helplessly, trying to regain some semblance of control over her own words.

Santana smirks. "You're drunk," she states in Spanish; Brittany nods her head fervently in confused agreement.

"Dance?" repeats the blonde hopefully, holding out one hand. She has no palpable reason as to why she wants the smaller girl to accompany her with such a longing - it is a feeling (something that happens often around Santana, too much feeling) that hums in the cavity of her sternum, pressing against her forehead and spreading outwards in a warm glow. She feels it rarely, only when gorged on the content that Kaupang sees fit to give her. Perhaps Santana has laid a spell upon her that can only be felt in her presence, one of lazy afternoons and quiet nights and halting conversations.

Her skin looks much smoother than the countless boys who want more than just her fingers laced between theirs (perhaps their legs twined together between the sheets would satiate them) upon the crowded floor - they look good together, dark on light. Brittany's fuzzed brain wishes for the others to see that, too.

(She is my friend. _Mine._)

The priestess eyes her outstretched limb as one would a snake readying to strike. Brittany can see her weighing her doubts against her desires, crystal clear and quick as flowing water that runs expressions through her flesh. "I don't know..." Santana mutters, going to decline, but makes the mistake of looking up into Brittany's face. The sheer unguarded hope (in her, of all people) makes her denial stutter and die on the tip of her tongue, instead sucking her bottom lip nervously into her mouth.

_Be what she desires for once._ Without realizing what she's doing, she gravitates until she lays her fingers in Brittany's and their palms brush, sending electricity crawling up to her shoulder and settling in the hollow of her throat. Brittany's smile is blinding as she pulls her into the throng.

Santana's never been in a crowd that moves as this one does, seething and roiling much like the sea but without any of the danger. Sweat pangs her nose and she sidesteps moving feet, clinging tight to Brittany's comfort as they fight their way further inwards. "Come!'" the warrior says with a warm grin, pulling her close and laying her hands on her hips. The Iberian flushes at the warmth emanating from her larger form - was she always so tall? This close, she has to tilt her head in order to maintain eye contact.

The blue of her eyes is startling. Last time she hovered so near they were clouded with sickness, an overcast sky. Santana flails awkwardly with her hands before Brittany takes pity on her and removes her own to hold them. "Do what?" Santana asks in broken Norse, brow furrowed, glancing up at the warrior with palpable confusion.

"Dance!" She's twirled without warning and shrieks lowly, spinning on habit to land with her back to Brittany's chest. The blonde laughs, the sound long and deep, shaking up and rattling her spine with its richness. Her amusement is the cause of her pink cheeks, but she smiles anyway in return. It is instinctual - she can already picture the crooked smile that her mischievous roommate seems to wear, skewing one side of her face and pulling up her skin. Brittany's movements are fluid against her body, light with practice. Under her own guiding muscles, Santana feels herself move along with her. "Það er rétt, Santana. Bara fara með mér. Ég mun halda þér öruggt."

Her words are warm and welcoming. With a sigh, the priestess lets herself become swept away by the beat of the drum.

* * *

><p>They stumble, leaning against each other, laughing with no other reason than they can. Santana is pressed tightly into the blonde's side, her midnight-shroud hair fanned out against a slim shoulder like its own cloak. Her veins are lit aflame, coursing through her, brow beading with sweat that slips down the line of her jaw and disappears down her neck into the wool of her robes. Brittany mumbles, sloppy, into the cusp of her ear. She understands nothing, but the awkwardness of the words make her burst out into giggles again.<p>

So maybe she's drunk. Just a little bit. For loosening up, she swears.

Everything is spinning in a sort of demented pleasure, moving chairs into her path that she _swears_ weren't there a moment ago. She almost leans her forehead upon the expanse of Brittany's neck but catches herself just in time, an embarrassed snort rushing from her nose and wrenching her away from the viking.

She receives a question in glazed ocean eyes, eyebrows comically raised in confusion. In this state, Norse refuses to even begin and manifest along her tongue - instead, she shakes her head and motions for the other girl to hold on. One hand plants heavy on the table and she closes her eyes, alarmed when the floor keeps on moving underneath her feet. Perhaps that second swig of mead was a bad idea... or was that the twelfth? It all blurs together after being coaxed up to the floor.

_Silly girl. There's a reason I never let you drink._

Her head whips around. Though she _knows_ in her heart of hearts that it's impossible, her gaze still roams frantically over the multitude of bodies for a flash of familiar raven hair or the ice-white robe that her mother dons on a daily basis. In some aspects of the word she is but a child, craving desperately for the touch of family, wanting to hear the lilting tone of her song or even the stern snap of her reprimand.

It has been a half year since she's embraced her mother, seen her face, laughed at her words.

She suddenly feels irreparably lonely and hopelessly overwhelmed.

Santana stumbles once, seeking a way out - unneeded tears blur her vision and she hastily wipes them away with the back of her hand. As should have been predicted, the darkness of her thoughts have been unleashed with the loosening of her tongue and body, fingers itching for her staff and open space. Anything is better than this wave of noise that rushes over her, swirling and churning and spitting her back out, all broken and lost and-

A hand on her arm; she jerks away just in time to see Brittany draw back her fingers as if burned. She thinks of apologizing but the words refuse to come - the hurt expression on her face just makes it worse. The warrior has been nothing but generous to her, and this is how she repays her kindness? With half-hearted trust and (not-so) subtle flinches? _Stupid,_ she thinks, head spinning. _Diosa, niña estúpida._

"I'll be back in a moment, I just... just need some air..." Santana mumbles mostly to herself, stumbling through the crowd in order to fight her way to the entrance. Her emotions are a jumbled mess; picturing them as string they are all knotted together in a spectacular failure of colour, wound and tangled around each other with bits of different lengths bound hopelessly. Clumsy fingers only make the mess worse. People jostle and their skin rubs against her own, sweat upon sweat, brushing hands and booming laughs; too loud too much too fast and make it _stop_...

Santana staggers out and the fresh air is a welcome slap to the face, snapping her from her despairing haze. Without the countless eyes and oppressive bodies she can perhaps begin to think again, clear her mind of unneeded guilt. Her heart remains heavy at the phantom of her mother's voice.

It should have been thought out more, that much she knows. The few times she's partaken in drink it has left her a sobbing mess, sputtering over nothing in particular. If only she could have warned the warrior.

(Then again, this was when she had nothing to cry about.)

Her feet carry her naturally through the town square, in the direction of Brittany's home, skull thick with drink but not leaden. She will apologize to her come the morrow with a cup of ginger tea and honey for her headache - she's seen the warrior knock back her mead like it is the only thing keeping her afloat, and if she even manages to make it to her bed tonight, she will hardly be able to move in the morn. The hill is treacherous even during the day, almost lethal with nothing but the moon and your own swaying perspective to guide you.

Still, she had forgotten the world for a time. Brittany is nothing if not an adequate dance partner, teaching her the rhythms of their movements with sure hands and an easy smile. After playing for such a long stretch her voice and muscles had welcomed the change, moulding naturally to the new body behind her, feeling the soft cotton of her tunic. If only she knew how to communicate - their eyes are useful tools, yes, but sometimes only the tongue can speak - and ask her all sorts of questions. Was she born here? Is the man with the frozen eyes her abuelo? Why does she only wear men's clothing? At one time she had opened the dresser and discovered skirts, musty and obviously unused, pushed to the back with irritation.

If she cared to dwell on it (which she doesn't), Brittany has much occupied her mind of late. Simply fleeting thoughts, a wonder if she'd like that weapon or this bauble. As startling as it sounds, she's grown to enjoy her presence.

Santana has never had a friend.

Not one that didn't desire her for her dark looks or smoky voice. Not one that didn't play off her in the same way she did them. It becomes normal after a while, to use and abuse while giving only what you wish to give in return. Somehow with simply a smile and a pout she finds herself handing over without gain - that is a lie, Brittany offers so much more than she is able to return - bits and pieces of herself once kept close to her chest. The phenomenon is outstanding and perhaps more than a little unnerving.

A cough. Mid-step she freezes, one foot hovering awkwardly over the dirt, and casts her eyes about the quiet buildings. She has walked far, lost in thought, and finds herself in a darker part of town. A prickle stings the back of her neck. Even though she mutters to herself of paranoia there is the distinct feeling of eyes, watching, waiting for something she cannot figure. Her fingers long so desperately for her staff that her whole body pangs as one.

"Hello?" She calls out nervously. Her voice echoes through the streets, returning in a haunted warp. Only silence greets her.

"You're just being overly cautious," she mutters to herself, gaze darting along the sides of the longhouses, "nothing wrong with that." The clang of the blacksmith almost throws her clean out of her own skin, but his hearth emits a welcoming glow that the priestess quickly gravitates towards.

However, there are... complications.

"Því ert að hlaupa burt, spákonu? Komdu aftur og segja halló!" A voice comes out from the stillness, startlingly close and equally menacing. She whirls on her heel, robes flying about her; all the mead has not yet left her system and she stumbles a bit when she turns. They (more than one, their figures melting from the shadows) laugh at her mishap - the beating of metal upon metal stops curiously. In the dark their features are obscured, but all of them tower over her.

Mentally, she begins to tally her chances. She couldn't outrun them for long, but perhaps others will come to her aid. Without her staff she is reduced in options. Her link to the Goddess tingles but does not open.

"Köttur fékk tunguna?" Closer now, they walk with an odd sort of swaggering gait, hands tapping innocently along their haunches. In the reflection from the torches up above, their eyes gleam with an almost unearthly glow.

"I don't know what you want, but I suggest you pack up now and leave before I strip you of your masculinity," offers Santana with a low growl, voice firm to mask the subtle trembling beginning in the tips of her fingers, "though I doubt there's much to take away to start."

The combined mass of boys - not men, boys - pause and glance at each other in confusion, murmuring in their clumsy language. She takes their distraction and inches closer to the light that the smithy provides. They must not be much older than her, the lines of their muscle hard and packed, beginnings of beards pushing along their jaw. To her dismay, the set of their face is determined. (Hungry. So very hungry.) "Þú heldur að þú getur farið án þess að ... hjálpa okkur út?" says one, suddenly uncomfortably close while the others circle. She tries to keep them all in her sights, but it's futile.

Santana's palms begin to warm in response to her fear, hot even with the cold that shoots through her veins and counters the fuzzing of the alcohol. Sure, she's had to ward off men before - that had been in a crowded place with her staff and a sound mind. Her odds are forever dipping in their favour.

"Don't!" She snaps, widening her stance and curling her fingers. With a quiet hiss of air she scrabbles desperately for the comfort of her Mother, hovering just out of reach and unable to be spread open. Without the calm that the Goddess usually brings, their link slips away.

They had flinched back at the tell-tale clawing of her hands but grin when nothing comes forth. One grabs her arm (much like Brittany, but it's disgusting to even link her to anything of this sort) and she wrenches away only to fall into the snare of another. She yells, hoarse and terrified, feet flying out to his shins in a desperate effort to get away. The boy growls and hoists her high over his shoulder for a moment - from there, she meets a pair or unreadable blue eyes.

(They lack the warmth she now associates with the ocean.)

"Help!" She shrieks, wiggling towards the crippled blacksmith. "Help me!" Perhaps he couldn't save her, but he could go for help, shout until others came and investigated the noise. Perched upon his stool, hammer in one hand and rag in the other, he is the closest thing she has to salvation. Even looking at him brings her a sense of reassurance - with this comes the Goddess, trickling under her skin, beginning to slide inside without the blockage of her terror. Her power swells her, struggling fiercely under the boy's hold.

Until he looks away.

The bond seals as quickly as it had opened, leaving her cold and empty. "Bastard!" She roars in Spanish, thrashing now out of fury instead of fear. "You son of a bitch! Help me!" More hands, dragging her back down until her senses are smothered with rough skin and sweat and the ever-present horror that grows with every touch that they crush along her body and pin her shoulders to the hard ground. One palm cups harshly at her breast and she yelps in pain, fist flashing out to land a solid hit against his mouth. His teeth cut her knuckles but she barely feels the sting.

"Mother!" She calls through the night, "come to me, please! I need you!" There is no answer. For the first time in her life her Goddess has refused her call.

Santana sobs, palms flattening, digging so deep into herself it's like she's submerging, throwing herself into roiling tides she's never had to touch. The center of her chest feels hollow and altogether wrong, like she is caving in from the inside without Her familiar and welcome caress. She searches for their connection in the fool's hope that perhaps she can force the binding, ripping and tearing and touching through the hands that tug and claw at her, seeking and wanting so badly-

Something stirs far in her abdomen, near her spine. Like a needy child she wraps herself around the budding power, letting it sear its way through her bones and up her arms, exploding out of her hands in a chaotic burst of light. The effort punches its way through her chest and sends a lance of pain straight through to her mind, forcing her to roll onto her stomach, groaning and clutching her head. This new development is not... wrong. Different. It is not the steady build and constant strength that tightens her muscles and sends waves of blue spreading through her palms - more of a frenzied rage given form, burning her up from the inside and slamming against her skin to get out. Her personal energy, wild and confused from never having been used. Vaguely she registers forms about her, milling on the ground and beginning to get up.

Everything hurts. Her own power she had summoned rages within her without purpose or direction, wreaking havoc and sapping every last ounce of will, periodically hazing over her vision with mists of nothingness. Sparks of white snap haphazardly from her skin even as she heaves herself unsteadily to her feet, muffling curses. Through squinted eyes she sees two of her assailants staggering upright on their own.

The third does not move. His right side is an angry red, oozing clear fluid, pieces of clothing in tatters and hanging from his torso.

_They won't get to me, _she thinks in a frenzy, outstretching her palm, _I won't let them._ Another flash of white and one cries out, the force impacting his face and burning the skin it touches. From the light created by the blast, she sees his thrall collar gleam against his neck. Again it feels like something has been ripped out of her, winded, staggering from the effort.

_It's never felt like this with the Goddess. What am I doing wrong?_

Santana hunches in her stance, cradling herself. Everything is covered in a thick grey fog that won't clear from her vision, swirling about her ankles, teasing her skin and coaxing her down into exhaustion. Like a muscle not yet used to exercise, her body can't compute the strain without the Mother's guiding touch showing her what to do. The last boy finally hauls himself upright, staring at her with wide, fearful eyes before staggering away. Shadows play along the edges of her vision. She reaches out for them only to have her fingers swipe at nothing.

_Home_, she thinks hazily, stumbling in the direction of Brittany's abode, _home is safe. _Before leaving, she turns once to meet the blacksmith's eyes. He is horrified, gaze riveted on the burnt flesh of the thrall's face and neck before he turns to meet her clouded, furious gaze. _Coward_, she mouths angrily before limping away.

Everything is spinning and swooping under her feet - every patch of dark another figure waiting to lash out on her crazed and confused form. Bursts of power sporadically pop behind her eyes, blinding her, causing the priestess to cry out in pain and stagger to a halt. In her head is a constant loop of _Mother, Mother_ that is never answered; tendrils of her being snake out to try and catch Her essence that she _knows_ is all around her, can feel but not touch, taunting her with its cold distance. Why does she abandon in her time of need? If she wasn't delirious with strain and hyper-paranoia, perhaps she'd come to a rational decision not influenced by pain and fever. As it stands, the sting of betrayal only grows the further she has to reach into herself and fuel her aching body.

She slams into Brittany's home with a groan and a curse, blinking her eyes wide open in search for her staff. Her feet stumble over one of the warrior's tunics - left it out again, how typical - and she sprawls down against the floor, cheek pressing hard against the cool wood and bringing her staff into vision.

Not caring how desperate she must look she crawls towards it, half-dragging herself along the ground until she wrenches it from place and curls awkwardly around its length. The beads light up at her touch and send a soothing glow spiralling against her face, burning into her eyelids in an attempt to see anything other than the white stars, now dimming, that come up from the deepest reaches of her.

She needs to learn how to control herself.

(T_he Mother won't leave you again_, her mind whispers, but there is always that _maybe._)

Gradually the laboured breathing puffing from her lips stills but her head is still a broken mess, wrenched open from the influx of energy. She can again feel the eyes on her despite how she lies motionless in the dark under the cover of silence. Another presence prods at her convoluted mind, one she should remember, but in this state she cannot begin to decipher the feelings that filter in and out of her being as a result of its influence. It is familiar, comforting - she lets herself bask in its brilliance for a moment but never trusting enough to open wide and accept that which it appears to be offering.

Santana floats in and out of nightmarish dreams where sinewy figures with claws for fingers rake at her exposed flesh. There is a woman with spiralling horns and gentle eyes that coaxes her from the worst of their presence but always draws herself back when she reaches out to touch, her head shaking slightly with a sad smile. Everything is veiled in red; when her hands raise they are shrouded in a white glow that burns all it touches. One figure surges towards her and she anchors her palms to his face - she keeps them there even as he screams and writhes until he becomes nothing but a charred skeleton and his bones fall into the abyss.

Yet through all this panic and rush she feels hollow. Like one could simply dip a hand into her chest and come back out with air. Every time she tries to rectify the ache the woman reappears, saying reassuring things in languages she doesn't understand.

It is this language that rouses her again, swathed in a cold sweat, cheek sticking to the floor. It is still dark but all her frenzy is replaced by a calm delirium that flutters her eyelashes and brings some focus to her darting eyes. Santana knows little of what the Fates have played out for her next, but she knows with an unshakable certainty that she cannot stay. Who can fathom what they'll do once they discover the thralls? They have been burned, irreparably altered by her ignorance, skin burnt black and cracking to make horrible contrast against their light eyes. This magic, this horrible thing that hurts without discrimination, is the only thing they will see.

Not for the first time her sense of betrayal burns bright through the night like a beacon. She shoves it aside, unwilling to fix these feelings lest they consume her in their intensity. Already, simply thinking about them twists her lips downwards into an anguished grimace, reviving her subdued hysteria.

Santana stumbles to her feet and plants the end of her staff heavily for balance. Her eyelids are drooping again but she refuses to let them fall. "Sandalio?" The first cry is weak, barely leaving her lips in a whisper. Her throat is raw from her screaming, tenderly bruised and unwilling to co-operate. Securing her medicine pouch to her belt with trembling fingers, she spins in place once, taking in the room that has been home for nearly two months. Guilt gnaws at the pit of her stomach but it is overruled by the mounting hysteria as she clenches her fist around another explosion of light, smaller this time, drowning the quiet reason that chimes in her head. Groaning, she makes her way back into the outside world.

"Sandalio!" She calls out again, stronger this time, voice soaring through the trees and down where it is lost in the hush of the sea. He has run out of her physical reach somewhere, slumbering amongst the fallen leaves and swaying plants.

The priestess closes her eyes and summons her last reserves. With the echo of the wild around her she chases through their link, flitting through the consciousness of countless critters like her own sort of animal, heaving and panting and shuddering until she comes upon their familiar grove. He splays out on his back, cool amongst the grasses - when she brushes against his mind he bolts upright, head swinging anxiously from side to side. Her whisper tickles the inner reaches of himself, drawing him forward, gracefully unfolding his limbs until he stands on all fours and lines himself up from where he senses her call.

_Here, _says her mind, _here I am._

He feels her desperation pang within him and takes off at a sprint, tearing through the brush with eyes narrowed and paws slamming the dirt. She is cradled gently within his own chest, trusting him with her mind until he returns it to her; a loyal companion even in peril. Together they take the slopes down from the mountains, bounding across fallen logs and over murmuring streams. Though he cannot speak she hears his responding yelp. _I come, mistress. I come to you. _

After what feels like a small millennium her thoughts rush back into her own body with a jarring inhale. Gone is the strength of his lean limbs and the rippling of his pelt, replaced by the crippling fatigue and spikes of pain drilling through her own head. She staggers once, but he is now pressed up against her thigh - his own flanks heaving, Sandalio prevents her fall.

"Good boy," she praises in a slurring tongue, running her free hand across his ears, "such a good boy. You came right when I called... you're the only one that came." Her face twists in pain. "She didn't come, boy. I tried and tried but she didn't answer me and now we need to go before they know what I've done. B-Brittany always said I was free, right?" She receives no answer, but believes she spies concern in her companion's gaze. "Yes, that's right. I'm not bound here. I don't need them. I don't need _any _of them, not even her!"

With sheer willpower, she musters enough strength to look out into the endless forests. "I've been alone for a long time," she whispers quietly, "and I can do it again."

* * *

><p>Damp earth is the first thing she smells when she begins to stir into consciousness. The scent of the ground and the cool slick of it pressing against her face, sinking under her nails. It smells different from her usual bed - deeper, richer. As if she has been submerged completely under the soil instead of simply sleeping around it.<p>

Santana frowns slightly and twitches her limbs, brushing her palms along her confines; alarm bells begin to ring when soft earth meets her touch instead of wool bedding. It is strangely cold here, the air not frozen but lacking the embrace of the sun.

She opens her eyes and immediately regrets it. Pain spears through her temples and she moans pitifully, an arm coming up to press against her aching skull. Now that she spreads her awareness she notes her mouth is as dry as the pseudo deserts that scatter Iberia. Her hands are the only parts of her that are uncomfortably warm, throbbing angrily - she tries to bring them up to face level but notes that even when she squints her eyes open, nothing is possible to be seen in the gloom she finds herself.

Bits and pieces come to her as she lays there, fragmented memories clouded by alcohol and anguish. Santana remembers dancing, the smile that never left her face as Brittany guided and twirled her along the floor, the dip in her mood as the mead hit and left her a pining mess. She had stumbled outside, desperate for air... and then what?

The priestess moves with more surety now after minutes of stillness, pressing her feet against the confines, frowning when the walls at times give away under her pressure. Soil crumbles over her leg but it makes no sense until she cranes her neck and the first shaft of sunlight sends her headache into a frenzy. After the instinctive hiss of pain and narrowing her vision, she realizes that she finds herself in a large hole. Above, a tree spreads its leaves and blocks out the worst of the glow. Roots crawl around her temporary hovel, keeping shape. How in the name of the Goddess did she get here?

Getting up to the forest floor is a laborious process, one punctuated by angry cursing and whimpers of pain. Her hands have begun to ache with a ferocity barely seen, spurring her onwards, completely aware of the medicine horn strapped to her back. When Santana pops up, she levels right into curious brown eyes.

Sandalio gives her a doggy grin and happily licks her jaw, wet nose nuzzling the bottom of her ear. She smiles in return and quickly buries her face into his pelt, inhaling the comforting scent of animal musk and warm sun. After she draws away, she heaves herself out of the entrance and rolls onto her black again. It is blood-red under her eyelids and soothing, the heat of the day wrapping around her chilled flesh, sounds of the wilderness around her a constant backdrop.

_Stumbling along the route to the hill. Introspection, lost in memory and the fuzzy presence of copious mead. The blacksmith's forge burned bright even in the dead of night and its safety drew her away from the shadows of the roads._

Her robes have been sullied by the offerings of the earth, streaked brown upon grey, marking her as some sort of bizarre striped creature. Sandalio seems better for wear, his fur relatively clean and untangled. Santana groans and rolls herself over until she can wobble into a hunch, opening her eyes only to close them again when the ground runs away from her. Any press of her hands upon the ground brings waves of pain that leave her nauseated and with a sense of growing dread.

When she flips them over, she stifles a horrified gasp. The skin is broken and raw, bright red, weeping from the seared skin and creating sticky trails down her wrists. The outline of her palm is where the damage is worst, scored angrily and refusing to scab over. Almost as if she had laid her hands on something burning at let it eat right through her flesh - she whines deep in her throat as she curls her appendages and receives a worried lick for her troubles.

_Voices. Loud and taunting, almost asking her something. Eyes that lacked any warmth, the anguish as she searches for the Goddess but receives no reply. She screams and cries for help but the men still flatten her onto the ground, groping her covered flesh until she summoned another power, breaking through her barriers and exploding outwards in a blinding flash of sacred white. _

Where was her Mother?

_I was here, child._

Santana starts, squinting against the harsh sunlight as she struggles to stand. Her stomach lurches and she drops back to her knees after quick deliberation, innards now twisting themselves into knots and bile staining the backs of her teeth. "Ataecina?" She is worried by how hoarse her voice sounds to her own ears, some weak and broken thing after hours of disuse.

_I cannot come if you do not wish to listen._

The priestess frowns. She remembers calling out time after time, grasping desperately for that comforting blue aura, only to be unable to open the link to herself.

_Staggering home in a haze of delirium and exhaustion. She collapses on Brittany's floor and dreams of terrible things; monstrosities taking the form of men and a woman she cannot touch but knows by heart. The mead and her own failure play tricks on her shattered mind, convincing her to fetch Sandalio and leave before the dawn. They crash their way through the brush in the dead of night, her companion never leaving her side._

"W-what do you mean? I was looking for you." She cannot help the hurt that leaks into her voice, a petulant child denied their promise. Her betrayal still sits in her chest, lessened now that she hears her voice resonate as crystal bells in her head, soothing the pain of the light. As petty as it seems, she feels herself slighted, forced to use something she didn't know she possessed - the cost was higher than she would have thought to sacrifice. Her battered limbs testify to that.

_Your fear deafens you to all but yourself, Santana. You wanted, but were unwilling._

She dwells on that. Is she to say that disconnect between herself and her faith was upon her shoulders? Now that she thinks with a normal headache and not one born of hysteria, it seems more likely than just assuming the Goddess would cut her off for no other reason than she could. Santana coughs and her cheeks colour in shame.

"I-I'm sorry, Mother. I wasn't thinking properly, I was just so scared. They were everywhere and-"

_You need not apologize to me. I understand your plight and it breaks my heart to know I could not aid you. But now you realize there are powers other than myself, ready to aid you if you so desire._

Even now she feels different. The white-hot energy from last starfall still thrums headily withing her but with purpose, an electric current running under her skin that she is able to direct. It eases the pain of her hands and lets her open her eyes without narrowing them to slits, filling the hole in her exhausted core, allowing her lungs room to expand and take in the green-tinged air. She feels the distinct sense of a smile pressing against the back of her neck. It is good. Powerful. Once she casts aside this wretched nausea, she will be better than ever before.

_After stumbling blindly through the grasses, Santana falls to her knees. Even with the glow of her staff the darkness is oppressive, hiding eyes and faces, waiting and watching for her eventual failure. Sandalio yips and nudges at her to keep going, guiding her forward, standing tall around a deeper dark that yawns hugely from the base of a tree. She peers blearily down into the depths but her fatigue outweighs her caution - she tumbles into the comforting earth, trusting her hound to guard her throughout the night. _

_ She doesn't dream._

* * *

><p><strong>Translations!<strong>

**Þú verður að syngja í kvöld!: You have to sing tonight!**

** Syngja: Sing**

** í kvöld!: tonight**

** Nenni ekki, hún er ekki þess virði tíma þinn: Don't bother, she's not worth your time-proven**

** Það er rétt, Santana. Bara fara með mér. Ég mun halda þér öruggt: That's right, Santana. Just go with me. I will keep you safe.**

** Því ert að hlaupa burt, spákonu? Komdu aftur og segja halló!: Why are you running away, prophetess? Come over and say hello!**

** Köttur fékk tunguna?: Cat got your tongue?**

** Þú heldur að þú getur farið án þess að ... hjálpa okkur út?: You think you can go without ... helping us out?**


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Thank you all for your kind words, they truly mean the world to me. Here we are, slowly getting into the thick of things, their friendship blooming from their troubles. It was originally going to be a bit longer, but I believe we have figured out a good way to end it. Thank you so much to my beta **LeMasquerade **for their wonderful work in helping me assure that my chapters are the best quality they can be.

* * *

><p>Chapter 7<p>

**I was looking for a breath of life**

**a little touch of heavenly light**

** May 24****th****, 912**

A figure moves like the whispers of winds across the ground with eyes wide open for such an early morning. Their feet travel delicately across their known path with a destination and destiny both in mind, burning bright, eclipsing all truth but _this_. It wasn't long before all of the town had heard the commotion, the boys burnt and battered on the street, crying out incoherently about a demon with onyx eyes and a seductive voice. They had told tales of simply wanting to "speak", horrified when the stranger curled their hands and from them burst forth a halo of light so bright they were blinded, falling back when it hit their skin and chewed down to the bone. After that flash, they had spied the colour of the witch - deep and dark, touched by the sun and rubbed honey from years on the plains.

The new priestess.

People had been up in arms, nervously muttering to themselves and glancing over their shoulders, murmuring words of consolation when they moved the pitiful youths. They were currently laying in a small shack not too far from Eyja's home - the only other mystic in all of Kaupang - nursing their wounds and soaking up the attention and affection both. One was, anyway. The other has fallen into sleep after the shock and has not yet to wake.

_It is for the better,_ thinks the figure as they float silently through the empty streets. _I only need one._

Very few had decided to give the priestess the benefit of the doubt - namely Betar, having caught glimpses of the girl's inner self, and the two she had made friends with in Aarhus. They swore up and down there was no way she simply would strike them down for games, seeing directly the walls of blue that come from her palms when provoked. This light sits wrong upon her shoulders. Yet, none listen. They never do.

The door creaks quietly when pushed, the soft soles of the person's feet making no noise when they step upon the dirt surface. They will have to be quick; dawn rises and with it comes the other mystic to check on their blistering wounds and budding fevers. With any luck infection will set in and they will die a slow, miserable death.

A flash of teeth in the gloom betrays the twisted and guilty hope. With no effort they glide until they rest next to the cot of the less injured boy, studying the raw pink of his flesh and how it glistens grotesquely in the light. The person's gut churns uncomfortably at the sight but still reaches down with one graceful hand, clamping their long fingers around his tender throat and squeezing tight.

His eyes snap open, lids layered with sweat, gasping for air that he's been denied. The boy looks up into the shadowy mass of the cloaked man's hood, eyes obscured without the glare of the sun. For a second he almost spies a glimpse of the priestess coming back to finish the job - he merely imagines things; the skin is too light, stature too tall. He relaxes, if even minutely. This shift causes the hold on his windpipe to tighten and the fear coiled within his gut to immediately knot back together.

"What have you done?" It comes out as a hiss, both angered and indignant. He struggles in confusion but he receives no air for his troubles, simply pressed down further into the bed. The way the salt of the figure's flesh rubs into his wounds is agonizing in the worst of ways, pushing whimpers from his throat, hands clawing uselessly at a slim wrist.

He is shaken again, impatient. He has come looking for answers, and nothing else will matter until they are received. "You did something to scare her, troll-bait. Tell me."

But... he recognizes that voice. The figure shakes her head in irritation and from the hood tumbles forth long blonde locks, unraveling from the darkness of her cover. They brush against his face in ticklish waves, but he has no intention of laughing. "P-Pi... rs-on?" It seems to dawn on her that he cannot talk with no oxygen and lessens slightly her grip, and his gasp grates harsh in the stillness surrounding them.

From there her hood falls away and this time his breath catches for an entirely different reason. The whole town knows of Bretagne and her unorthodox ways, carried into the village on a tide of blood and a grieving chieftain. Perhaps from this violent beginning she was made docile and unwilling to wage conflict? He has heard how she avoids killing her foes, choosing instead to wound them and allow them to fight another day. Such cowardice is usually shunned and quickly rectified, but here, it simply lends another thing for the warriors to laugh about. Never has she worn the bloodthirsty, savage expression so common on some of the more violent of their ilk. Instead she decides to remain blank and open, betraying nothing.

But in this moment he sees a flash of the commander she could become. Her eyes are thick like thunderstorms, hosting vicious flashes of lightning, lips curled back in an angry snarl and her brow knotted together. He sees the shadows from a night of drinking and little sleep, but she cares little for that now; there are more important things to be tended.

Never has he seen her so furious. He has no qualms about the power in her grip nor what it entails. If she tried, his life could end here with nothing more than a hoarse whisper.

"What have you _done?_"

He turns his gaze from her tumultuous glare lest he wither and be turned to dust. "W-we were just talking, I-"

A harsh squeeze puts an end to his words. "I know you lie," she says angrily, fingers shaking from strain, "I am the only one who does. I dislike hurting people, but I believe I can make an exception for you."

Only now does he spy her spear strapped to her back and the axe stuffed hastily into her belt. The boy pales and sputters with fear. "Now, I will ask nicely, and you should answer. Me being angry at you will do nobody good." And he believes her truth, never more inclined to take someone's word.

"W-we were out around the stalls. All the masters had gone and left us f-free to do whatever we wished. It was late when we saw her..." A spasm around his neck and the way her expression darkens spurs him into continuing. "She was walking alone muttering to herself. Drink, probably. Women lack the ability to hold their mead." She growls and he wills himself not to flinch. Even now he remembers the priestess and her startled expression, thick hair flying about her in waves to shroud skin as smooth as silk. If only he could have had a taste...

"She t-tried to get away. She was yelling something, sounded like _mad-reh_... Sren put her d-down on the ground... t-ried to t...take off her r-ro-besss-"

He chokes as her grasp becomes crushing, almost shattering his airways, cutting him off with a hacking noise of discomfort. For the second time he fears for his life as her weight is suddenly everywhere, a knee bruising against his ribcage and her nails tearing the broken flesh of his throat. The boy tries to cry out but it appears as a gurgle. "Did he remove them?" His head flies awkwardly in a jerky no, gasping and wheezing when the pressure dissipates again. She looks at him with such disgust - so out of place on her complacent features - that it makes him tear between wiping it off and shrinking away.

"Then what?"

"There was this flash, so bright I was blinded. Sren was on the road like..." he gestures weakly to the bed opposite him where his companion lies with a bound chest and red skin. Fluid seeps through his wrappings. "She looked really confused, almost sick. Her eyes were going everywhere and she was swaying across the road - I tried to get away but she opened her hand and hit me with it." And the rest is eaten by light, only to be smothered in shadow.

Brittany watches him, the flickers in his expression, fearful and caught in memory. This part is true, that she knows. "It is strange," he mutters as if he has forgotten she stands above him, "that the blacksmith refused to help her. You'd think he would jump at the chance to play for Valhalla."

The blood in her veins turn to ice. "What?"

He startles, coming from a dream. "H-he was there. Watching. She yelled for help but he just looked away."

* * *

><p><strong>June 2<strong>**nd****, 912**

Santana hisses in pain and retracts her hand from the blackberry bramble, sticking her thumb into her mouth to halt the bleeding. The sun has long begun its descent from the sky, but she refuses to leave the spoils of her find to some creature that will come along in the night to steal her glory, face set in determination as she pushes her scratched hands back into the bush.

It has been... how many days since she ran from town? Seven? She knows not, for time runs away when not kept to structure. She finds herself unwilling to be risen by the burning light of dawn, curled safely away in the cool earth that she has claimed as her own. It wrecks havoc on her mind, tricking her into believing the middle of the day is the morning, looking up in surprise when the Eye makes its way down mere hours after she has turned her face to the touch of the day. For hours does she sit, motionless, staring into the depths of the fire and willing herself into sleep that refuses to come.

When she perpetually has something to do, it is easy to ignore the fact that she is so very lost. It is her pride that stops her heart from connecting with her mind, unable to come to the eventual conclusion that perhaps this wasn't the best of ideas.

_Better than staying there,_ she'd always grumble, glancing down at her healing palms, _Goddess knows what awaits me._

Her thoughts often turn to Brittany. She finds herself thinking absently of her eyes or her smile, the way she has yet to trip over a tunic the warrior has laying around. It's not that she enjoys constantly catching glimpses of her bared torso - her face _burns_ at the mere thought - but her company is sorely missed. Their easy silence was always fast to assuage her doubts, some that creep upon her the longer she stays hidden, robes sullied further and further until she is soon to be one with the earth in which she sleeps.

Not for lack of trying... even after dunking her garbs in a small fjord that is still cold as the grave, she finds she simply cannot rid herself of the stains. It is permanently a part of them as it is of her, the delicate ring of flesh around her hand scarred darker from the burn.

Santana irritably shakes away the thoughts of blonde hair and goes back to her task, carefully teasing out the ripe blackberries from their tricky prison. Her arms are scored and beading from over an hour at this tedious work, but her stomach outweighs her nerves. It has been difficult finding food in these wilds, so different from her native home that she knows not where to look. One day Sandalio had trotted back with a pleased glimmer to his eye and dropped some sort of wildfowl at her feet, twitching feebly and bleeding sacred blood into the earth. She had muttered a small prayer to the dying animal before turning to her companion and knocking her head with his, grinning, feeling the bond between them thicken and lengthen the longer they stay together.

When she dreams, she follows him at night. Within him she feels the strength of his body as he streaks through the forests, a shadow to the grasses as his eyes seek out something she does not yet understand. Sometimes she thinks they can speak, not with words, but with something _else _entirely.

(_Like with Brittany._)

"Will you _stop_ that?" she asks herself in exasperation, throwing her hands up angrily in the air and placing the last of her blackberries into her gathered cape. "It is getting on my last nerve."

_ Blue-eyes friend._

She looks curiously to her right, where Sandalio lays with his head on his paws. "Did you do that?" She gets no answer. They hold their stare for several moments before she gathers up her prize and wanders back to her shelter.

Upon exploring the surrounding area she had found the tree carved out almost entirely from the trunk, giving way to a perfect spot to create flame. Wary of the power now simmering in her chest she had gathered as much kindle as she could, branches dragged and broken with the moderate power of her legs, and held her raw palm nervously up to the grasses. Santana knew not what to expect, but it certainly wasn't the growing white glow and the resulting explosion that flashed from her hand and caught into brilliant light.

Once the glare settled and retracted from her eyes, she was left with the phantom of the desperate energy that she had summoned the previous dark that made itself known by thrumming deep in the quick of her being.

It resides there constantly now, a roiling river coursing alongside the steady flow of her link. They clash but never mix, each powerful and pure in their own ways. Ever since the attempt to spark her fire resulted in a bang so large she almost threw herself through the tree, she has been loathe to try again. Her own fears stop her from trying but her need requires her to adapt. She finds the irony stifling. (There is a chasm between the two streams, concealed and shadowed. If this white power makes her nervous, Santana does not even begin to dwell on this darkness that snares her with a sense of utter dread. It lingers, waiting but never touching.)

The priestess shakes herself and sits with legs folded in front of the fire, taking comfort from its noise. She shuffles her food until she can easily pop berries into her mouth, much to the approval of her grumbling stomach. Whatever meat she had managed to acquire in her two-month stay in Kaupang has been rapidly wasting away once more - already she can feel the sharpness of her cheekbones under her probing fingers and the hard curve of her ribs dangerously close to her palms. Her hips, never thick in the first place, are ridged bone and little swell. At times she misses the definition she had begun to acquire.

A hand runs through her tangled mane and she shakes her head to free herself of these trivial thoughts. There are many other things to worry of - one being the crackling she has heard previous nights, lingering outside her hovel. There have been glimpses of what she believes to be a bared human chest, muscular and tanned, but as she goes to check it vanishes. If he is not of her imagination the man stands taller than any man she has ever seen, easily passing seven feet. What manner of giant can walk the earth?

Brittany had once told her in pictures and halting words the tale of a troll who lived under a bridge and stole from all passers-by. This went on for many years and he had a great stash of gold to guard - so great that he was able to sleep on his wealth and did so nightly to remind himself of his treasures. She had laughed at the fat sketch Brittany had drawn in the dirt with his crude face pulled into an angry frown, sporting massive tusks and a protruding belly. In came another figure; human with long braided hair and a massive hammer in his fist. Brittany named that one Afi and pointed subtly to Grandfather who slumbered in the shade.

From what she could gather with Brittany's fractured wording and less-than-stellar drawing, Grandfather had heard of the complaints and crossed the bridge without armour, only a simple knife strapped to his thigh, hidden and out of sight. When the troll clambered up from the depths, he saw that Grandfather had no gold upon him and grew enraged, spitting and cursing up from the depths of his home. For the first time in years he heaved himself out of his lair and into the sun to take a puny life - unfortunately, in his fury, he had forgotten that in sunlight his kindred turned to stone. He had frozen, reaching for the then-younger man, mouth gaping open into a roar and beady eyes fixed somewhere on the horizon. Soon after his transformation, Grandfather rolled him off the bridge where he shattered into pieces.

Santana took it all with good-natured amusement but put no thought into Brittany's tales... until recently. Faced with unknown figures in the night and the uncertainty of a new land, she could not be so sure. _They don't come from their bridges though, _she had reassured herself shakily after a close brush with another assailant, _not when it's nice and dark below._

Then again, Finngeirr was lumbering about in plain sunlight.

She snickers and pops a blackberry into her mouth, grimacing at the tart taste. Look at her, speculating on fairytales and folklore. She had always scoffed at the townspeople in Botaya that whispered of corpses come to life without reason, stringing garlic and sprinkling mustard seeds to keep the demons away. Why should things change? She doesn't believe in monsters.

That's what she tells herself until the branches rustle.

Santana freezes mid-chew and whips her head to the noise, eyes darting in the dark that yawns with ragged teeth and shivering leaves. Upon the broken horizon the sun sinks low, shielding its comfort, giving birth to the night and the deception that lies within. Her fingers clamp tightly onto her staff and she attempts to peer into the gloom for any glimpse at her latest opponent, seeing nothing but the swaying of brush as _something_ pushes it from their path. Sandalio stands, hackles raised, lips bared into a feral snarl while the fire glints off his pointed teeth.

_Mother,_ she murmurs and this time she swallows down her panic, fights to keep her chest open as the familiar warmth pours through and settles in her belly. It tingles to the tips of her fingers and soothes the irritation in her palms, stroking invisible digits down the curb of her jaw, sharpening her vision. She is tied into the Earth; the heartbeat of the land pulses through her even as ocean blue gathers into the cup of her hand. _I am here, my child._

They will not find her cowering this time.

She waits until they are close enough, slipping almost silently - aren't trolls supposed to be noisy creatures? - across the grasses. The moan of a sapling and the part of its nubile branches pulls her looping energy to the pinpoint of her forehead. Though the marking has faded, the focus has not. Santana sucks in air until her lungs burst with it, holds it, feels her heart pound through her veins; a foot appears into the flickering firelight and the strength coiled within her releases, breath rushing from her at the same time the celestial bolt soars from her in a forceful rush to impact upon her target. There is a muffled hiss as the oxygen is knocked out of her assailant, sending it sprawling backwards into the awaiting shadow with a crack as their body hits a frail sapling.

For a moment she is rooted to the spot, thrumming and feeling the river turn into an ocean, eyes wide open in the dark. Her Mother smiles and urges her forward with a secret knowledge and the distinct feeling she is lacking a vital piece of information. She traces her way through the broken plants, ducking under a low-lying branch, treading upon the giving ground with light steps until she comes upon a body slumped against the trunk. It becomes rapidly apparent this is not the same person that has been stalking her for nights, chest far too narrow and clothed. Her eyes roam from sturdy boots to simple breeches, travelling up to a worn linen shirt with a large braided belt wrapped around a slim waist and finally to a tilted face and blonde hair spilling outwards.

Santana catches the sight of a slender, pale hand splayed over the wanderer's stomach and frowns, studying the scars. She _knows_ those hands.

Blonde hair...

"Brittany?" She shrieks in a voice that would be embarrassing if she had the presence of mind to care, rushing to her form when the other girl mutters a greeting and raises her head heavily in discomfort. Santana kneels down and cups her milky cheeks, nervously checking for broken skin and broken bones, fingers fluttering and running down the length of her neck, unaware of the goosebumps she leaves in her wake. Brittany's face splits apart into a grin despite the pain in her back, waiting until Santana senses eyes on her to look up.

"Hello." The warrior says affectionately, arms looping around Santana's waist and pulling her in. She yelps and shoots one hand out to steady herself against the tree, but falls regardless into her lap with a heavy exhalation. Beneath her, Brittany practically _vibrates _with excitement that is shown when she nearly crushes her ribcage. A rapid stream of Norse is released into the crook of her neck where she has decided to rest her head, but she manages to make out the words _worry_ and _time_ in the babble.

Guilt simmers to a boil.

"Hello," Santana cautiously greets back when she's released, Brittany's hands hanging loosely on her hips and the priestess turned so that her feet face outwards but her torso is aligned with her friend's. For a moment she lets her gaze roam all over Brittany with no other intention than to take her in, fingering a few pieces of silk that have strayed from her singular braid. It has been a little over a week but it feels like a lifetime, taking in the near-purple shadows under her eyes and the darker tone of her skin. "Good?"

Brittany nods happily. "Good now," she says cheekily and squeezes Santana's sides with a blinding grin, simply content in finding the other girl. After ripping the information from the thrall she had taken up two of the best trackers she could find and stormed off into the brush. It was an arduous task simply to convince them to come, taking days; as with the others they were now wary of the priestess and her supposed power, three-clawing themselves when they passed Ejya's little shack. After much promise of a place at her father's table come the harvest-feast they had agreed, shouldering their packs and marching off into the broken grasses. It was simple at first, but as her path crossed streams it grew difficult and was the product of many dead ends. They were patient with the promise of glory, and she was determined to find her friend. In the end it was worth the hazards.

She had dismissed them the previous night, following upon an urge she could not name. Though there were branches splitting off into all parts of the forest it was almost like the priestess had weaved her life into the leaves that Brittany was then following, traces of her laid out as clear as the greatest signs. They had looked at her like she'd once again contracted illness; her confusion was renown throughout the village, and they left her in peace.

Better they not be there when they come across the volatile foreigner, in any case.

Not deterred from what she has heard whispered upon the winds of her town, the girl-warrior traces the length of Santana's arms until she comes to her palms. Her brows furrow when the darker girl hisses slightly and pulls away at the pressure of her thumbs against her skin. "Show." Brittany demands more than asks, eyebrows raising.

Santana shakes her head stubbornly, something that could be a decline coming from her mouth.

"Show." Brittany repeats, using her superior strength to dig her thumbs into her wrists and forcefully turn them over. The flesh along the raised contours is pink but blistering, beginning to heal over ever-so-slowly. Though the center of her hands are almost untouched, there is no question these marks will leave scars. The northerner uses the tips of her fingers to follow just under the wounds, smiling slightly when her hands twitch and attempt to trap slender digits with her own. Burn marks.

So it is true, then.

Perhaps she hadn't sustained grievous injury, but as she attempts to shift her back twangs, uncooperative in this position. Being attuned to the taller girl as she is, Santana immediately realizes the discomfort in her expression and clambers off from her, guiding hands shifting under her spine to help her into a sitting position. "Hurt?" she asks worriedly, guilt pooling in the cracks of her voice.

Brittany smiles but it comes out a little pained, mumbling a no before a stern glare has her turning it into a yes. Santana sucks one lip between her teeth and chews on it anxiously, eyes unknowingly sweeping over Brittany's form until pale flesh is dusted red, somewhat disconcerted by her intense stare. Santana reaches back and carefully unhooks her spear that hangs from her pack, handling the shaft with care. She gives it to the warrior to hold, slipping the pack from her shoulders and laying it against the tree. This is familiar - here she has no need to guess herself or why Brittany simply _watches_ her with eyes so soft they could melt the snow that falls as winter turns its face. Together they worm her out of her tunic, Santana being the one that goes red as a winding expanse of smooth, creamy back is bared to her in greater intimacy than ever before. One palm delicately runs up the skin, taking in the thick muscle of her shoulder-blades and the shallow dip of her spine as she flexes with every breath.

Brittany curls into a ball and allows herself to arch back subtly into her touch, humming pleasantly when warm fingers trace the knots in her sides. Santana is so close she can feel her breath - heavy and rich from the berries - brush the wispy hairs from the back of her neck. She shudders and tucks her face into the crook of her neck, frowning at the sudden throb of her heart. It slams against her ribcage for no other reason than it can. _It feels like dwarves are playing drums in my stomach_, she muses as Santana's fingers touch the base of her hips and all breath leaves her body.

Something sparks between her legs and her pelvis jerks forward, rolling clumsily and catching nothing but air. The motion takes her completely by surprise and she nearly topples over, righting herself only to settle again with her limbs wider apart to now alleviate the ache that pulses softly in her abdomen and the apex of her thighs. She is hyper-aware of her skin rubbing against her clothes and Santana's dancing fingertips tracing patterns against the strong muscle of her ribs, weaving symbols into her flesh.

Instantly, the probing presence recedes. "Hurts?" The priestess frowns to herself when Brittany shakes her head from where it's nestled, ears crimson. Has she another fever?

Currently she's more worried with the long stripe of blue that is already rising viciously against the almost-blinding pallor of Brittany's back. It runs diagonally, a result from where her spear was forced into her flesh upon impact, undoubtedly causing her pain. One press upon it confirms her suspicions when a muffled groan rises from the girl in front of her.

"I apologize." She sighs. She is able to do very little for bruises lest she dunk her in the Oslofjord nearby, but the cold would be too great a shock - the North Sea is frigid at best, leaving one shivering in its icy hold within minutes. Instead she smooths her aching palms down the angry line once again and shuffles back on her heels, causing Brittany to look up curiously and elongate herself to remain in eye contact. From this distance she can differentiate between the contracted dark of her pupils and the endless brown of her iris, fanning outwards and tracing the tiny blood-vessels that litter the sclera like little roads. They are red and irritated from lack of sleep but still startlingly clear.

Santana does the same before averting her gaze - downwards. For a moment she is motionless and Brittany watches as red spills over her caramel cheeks and suddenly she lets out a long-suffering sigh, "Shirt, Brittany." and shoves the object over her breasts. Her companion smiles sheepishly and hastily redresses, mindful of her new injury.

By the time Brittany manages to wave off Santana's fussing it is the type of dark that closes in and blinds you with superstitious claws. Sandalio had appeared earlier and bounds happily around the warrior's feet, but it does not diminish the effect that the oppressive forest presents at night. The priestess mutters a prayer and the charms dangling from her staff burst into light; a beacon in the blackness. Brittany's skin absorbs the glow almost like moonlight - she is resplendent in its cold light and her eyes are pearls that glimmer in the shadow.

Together they trace back their steps, Santana blushing fiercely at how far she managed to blast the other girl until they reach the gently smouldering fire. The warrior is quick to bring it to life until the flames roar high and give them some form of comfort, a fragile shell of protection against whatever lurks beyond the barrier. Their tenuous quiet is often broken by the deep call of the owl or a trill of another unknown beast. Santana watches the brush constantly for another glimpse of the figure that has been haunting her thoughts.

Quietly, without fanfare, Brittany links her smallest finger into Santana's.

She turns inquisitively but Brittany stares straight ahead, face stoic but eyes darting. It is only now that Santana sees the rigid line of her muscles and the tense of her jaw, shallow breath inflating her chest sporadically. It's so obvious that it becomes worrying.

She is afraid.

But what has she to be afraid of? The calls of the animals or the whispers of the trees? There is nothing lurking beneath the canopy of the branches that can harm them more than themselves, caught in the boundary they are loathe to leave. Still, there is a distant clarity under that blue haze she finds disconcerting in ways she's never had to think about; taught from a young age that nature was nothing to fear, she has difficulties wrapping her head around whatever may lurk beyond. Brittany, however, seems to have no such problems. As time passes she does not relax to a degree that allows her to rest, senses alert, instincts thrumming on high and jumping at every crackle of the flames. It has turned so late that the moon casts her light until the area is bathed in it, soothing every rock and blade of grass.

"Come," Santana says softly. Brittany tilts her head and allows her eyes to connect with her friend's, squeezing her finger once in confusion. In return she is tugged until she wobbles upright, exhaustion clawing at her eyes, making her stumble as she is led into the unknown. She had denied herself rest in favour of trampling through the newly bared trails, spear ready and hopes high.

There are things that lurk here of which noone dares speak about. It is why solely the centaurs choose it as their home, capable of warding away the monstrosities that lumber into these woods.

The priestess squats and busies herself with something over the ground - Brittany is her sentinel, muscles shifting, scanning the same spots over. There is a strange, almost unwavering impulse to be Santana's guardian, to throw herself in the face of danger if she so benefits from it. It unnerves her but all at once fills her with a sense of deep peace.

A warmth on her hand. She looks down - Santana is half-swallowed in shadow, torso sticking out from the gloom. Brittany's tired mind cannot compute and she stares dumbly at where her legs should be. "What are you doing?" If Santana hears her she chooses not to acknowledge it, watching as the smaller girl slithers into the gloom.

It is too quiet up here without another body. The fire has wound down to nothing and sputters occasionally, giving off little but the weakest of light. Another thought comes from within - _a hole, _her mind supplies in confusion, _has she been living in a hole?_ - and this time she wastes no time, shedding her weapons and hefting herself inside. Her body disappears and is swallowed by cool earth, muscles twanging - she becomes one with the core as it engulfs her head and something is dragged over them until they are sealed off to the outside world.

She expects this type of confinement to be smothering. Dirt presses in from all sides and some trickles into the back of her collar; her boots sink deep into the soil; the air she breathes is rich and heady. Yet in this scent she can taste Santana's sweat and the smell of her skin, unique even amongst the overpowering muck that seeps slowly into the creases behind her ears. As she feels around, muttering apologies as the walls lose some of their girth, she finds she can almost lay down - reclining until her legs are splayed out and her back is draped loosely over the angled wall.

A quiet shuffling - due to Brittany's height and long legs, Santana is unable to find a place to sleep with her taking up the space. Each touch brings her into contact with the warrior, flesh upon fabric, shooting tingles through her body until she hums everywhere with a nervous anticipation. Brittany seems to sense her discomfort even in the dark and reaches long fingers until she comes into contact with Santana's face. Perhaps she smears dirt along her cheekbones, but the shiver that rolls into her spine says she doesn't mind.

The warrior mistakes the movement. "Cold?" She says gently, voice loud in the small hesitates before nodding - it is not a complete lie, for the ground is cool with the receding light, but her truth is far greater than that. Never has she shared such a closed area with anyone. Her peers were all idiots; stocky farmhands with their heads lost somewhere during childhood, arrogant nobles who believed themselves to be gifts from their God. Her Mami always told her that she need not give herself to any man lest she want to, to have her hold their heart and in return take hers.

She still scoffs at that. How can one person hold so much sway over another? It's absurd. Irresponsible. And yet... perhaps a friendship can have as much influence as a romance? The way Brittany tugs her forward says as much. She stumbles, palms fumbling over the ground and later her prone body until she falls forward ungracefully into Brittany's chest, face smothered by her tunic. Her mumbles vibrate the skin around her breastbone and the warrior giggles slightly, squirming.

Santana freezes at the unbelievable softness under her skin. Though her breasts aren't as large as her own they are infinitely more comfortable than the floor - her temperature spikes as each shift of muscle beneath her provokes a different reaction. Friendship is foreign to her... is this what friends do? It seems slightly forward, uncomfortable at best.

Much like that night at the dance, she takes pity on the priestess who awkwardly flails with her hands and head. When Santana tries to get up, stuttering flustered apologies, blue eyes roll in the absolute dark and her arms worm around a robe-clad waist, tugging her down again until Santana's ear is squished against her breasts. Santana flushes in embarrassment but Brittany does not feel the heat of her cheeks, more attuned instead to the comforting weight over her. "Good," she says, gingerly running her fingers through Santana's hair and surprised when she isn't slapped away, "it is good."

Under her temple Brittany's heart pounds steadily like a war-drum. It reminds her, startlingly similar, of the pulse of the Earth; one hand buries itself in the cool soil and feels the answering call from the tips of her fingers to the roots of her teeth, the solid core to compliment the ocean she can hear within her lean body. As she counts the beats she finds herself relaxing, still sprawled mostly over her companion, face tilted up to nestle in the flat of her sternum. Brittany smiles to herself and slowly splays one hand against Santana's ribs, contentment only growing when she is not scolded. A month ago, this would simply be a distant dream.

Nothing tells her why, but she is her happiest when Santana is around. It is like the foreigner awakens something in her that is both frenzied and calm at once, measured in the deep throb of her heart that is anchored to Santana's ear and spreads through her body. They are a never-ending circuit as they huddle together for warmth and unspoken unity.

"Britt..." Santana hums sleepily, train of thought breaking off to fall into the waters of her mind. A vacant mumble meets her ears but she lacks the words she wishes to say - even in her own language, she draws nothing.

For the first time, she accepts being speechless.

Eyes heavy, Brittany slowly drifts off to the feeling of Santana utterly unwinding against her, feeling so small and delicate in her arms. Through this torturous week was something gained that she could not name, but is so much bigger than it appears to be.

They fall asleep in that position, tangled like spider-fine silk, reminded of the peace silence brings.

* * *

><p><strong>June 3<strong>**rd****, 912**

For once Santana rises with the sun. She is warm, a wonderful contrast to the previous nights, limbs splayed and intertwined with another's, her mouth open and half-buried in coarse fabric.

_I have not been this comfortable in months,_ she muses as she keeps her lazy eyes closed, languidly listening to the dull thump under her ear. It is of a sleeping giant - steady and grounding, she relishes the gentle hush as life-giving blood pushes its way through Brittany's veins.

That thought steals its way into the forefront of her mind, along with the sudden knowledge that her bed moves. Her fingers twitch and release the linen she had gathered into a loose fist, pressing down instead into the warmed earth, lifting herself up until she hovers quietly above a taller, sleeping form. Her body chills with the separation.

Being able to discern the vague nuances of Brittany's features brings back the night before; magic and flames and darkness. The remnants of the protection her embrace had offered her still lingers on her shoulders, coaxing her to lay back down through her resistance. She smiles despite herself at how Brittany's nose is scrunched in sleep, mouth moving soundlessly to speak to whatever phantoms lurk in the depths of her dreams. Through the fractured sunlight that filters down on them both she spies dirt smudged all over that porcelain skin - her fingers go to brush it away, causing a sleepy murmur to escape the girl under her and bleary eyes to crack open in confusion.

"San?" She mumbles and brings her fists up to her eyes. Santana bids her morning and they stare, unmoving, when Brittany's hands fall away and attempt to adjust to the early morning. Brittany's eyes flicker over her body for a moment before squinting and curling away, one arm flinging over her eyes to block out the early morning rays. "No," she grumbles, curling herself into warmer earth, "sleep. Það er enn of snemmt að komast upp."

Though the words are unclear, the meaning certainly isn't.

Santana laughs and struggles into a sitting position, reaching towards the ceiling. She yanks off the cover she had made on her third day here, flooding the hole with light and causing the girl under her to growl low in her throat at the intrusion. Despite the cover of her arm it is still too bright, orange under her lids, and she grudgingly pulls away her limb to squint upwards at her companion with glassy, confused eyes. "Okay, okay. Up."

Over the past few weeks Santana has begun to believe that she may truly have a friend. Her smile is genuine when she sees Brittany, lifting the almost constant scowl from her caramel features, allowing her to rest a comforting hand upon her shoulder or circle her larger hand around her dainty wrist. The thought is foreign but not entirely unwelcome, choosing to take things as they come rather than worrying about it to the point of pain. It seems to suit them - everything they do is fluid, natural. Analyzing movement and thought never seems to cooperate in the sense she wishes it to.

The day has already started to warm as the sun crawls its way into the sky; bright as the baubles on her staff and as deep as the ocean, not a cloud in sight. Summer heat will no doubt come and press on them in the coming weeks, sticky and hot, a blanket of matter they cannot touch that will drown Brittany in her own sweat during training. As she worms herself out of their hovel, skin brown and caked over with dirt, she groans internally at the thought of Kaupang.

So she didn't mention to her father she was going to find Santana. It's not like she has to answer to him. (Well, actually... she does.) She had to simply bat her eyelashes and request for a hunting trip - the village is running low on boar, the animal growing more savage and therefore difficult to kill - before he waved his hand in agreement, telling her to be back before next morn. That was four nights ago.

Sandalio greets them with an excited yip and affectionate nudge so hard she almost goes tumbling back into her bed. Her surprised grin becomes a true smile at the priestess and how she watches on, all crinkled eyes and dimples under her sharp cheekbones with her lips pulling back to reveal her teeth. It's something only Brittany usually sees - a _sólarljós-bros, _for the rays of the sun seem to pale in comparison. It's become one of her goals too see it more often where more people can appreciate the simple beauty that comes with Santana's bold presence.

(But another part wants her to be the only one that can coax it from her, a greedy part she tries to keep in shadow.)

Santana stands quietly by the tree, eyes narrowed into the jagged horizon. Her staff is planted by her side and her dirtied robes still give her a regal air despite their obvious disarray as she absently brushes back the glossy shroud around her shoulders. She is unmistakably deep in thought - Brittany can see her lips moving soundlessly to herself, almost like repeating a favourite song - and so she is left alone for the moment, instead wandering about with the hound at her heels to carefully stomp out the remaining embers of the fire that have survived the night. She absently spreads the ashes, cooling the heat, humming a low tune to herself as her mind wanders back home.

It would be a lie - and Brittany is very specific about lies and what should be said - to say that she wants to return. Her father will no doubt be furious, scouring the whole village until the timbers shake in their holds and his angered yells break the mountains that surround them. For a foolish moment she imagines staying here in the forest with Santana, learning of the plants and the ways of the animals, swimming through the rivers and climbing the grassy cliffs. It is a charmed idea, one than holds its own sort of allure. _But, _she thinks bitterly, kicking the ashes with more force, _I have duties._ They look to Betar more than the chieftain himself, and by default that weight falls upon her shoulders.

Brittany goes to scuff the remaining dirt but pauses, peering closely at a strange indentation in the earth. It is almost shaped like a crescent moon, as wide as her outstretched hand, the contours sinking deeply into the soft soil. She narrows her eyes and follows the trail, still crouched, moving silently on her hands and feet until she peers into the undergrowth and the looming trees overhead. While daylight, the shade it casts still feels wrong to her, unnatural.

Like the forest is hiding something.

She loses the tracks when the brush commences (she was never one for tracking, far too impatient in her youth) but sees the subtle waves where a larger body has brushed aside the grasses and cracked a few of the low-lying branches. There is a feeling in her stomach that grows the more she dwells on it, chewing at the ends of her consciousness with a vague sense of trepidation. Afi calls it her _gut_ and warns to never discard it, for the heart usually knows what the mind does not. How does the stomach and the heart mix? She doesn't know and chooses not to dwell on it. At this moment, she has higher priorities.

Brittany straightens out and reaches Santana in a few lengthy strides, breaking her from whatever trance she was indulged in. Her hurricane eyes blink once, twice, letting light back in as she turns to the warrior with an inquisitive frown. "¿Qué pasó?"

She points out into the distance. "Home. We need to go home."

Santana has perhaps made some progress, but not nearly enough. The frustration looping along her features betrays her incomprehension. "We need to... Kaupang! Home to Kaupang!"

"H-home?" She tests the word like it's bitter on her tongue, face scrunching slightly. Brittany is ever the excited scholar and grins without giving much criticism, heels bouncing. "Yes, home!"

She looks hesitant - Brittany sees it in the part of her lips and the twist of her brow. They are tattoos so clear on her skin, speaking of all the things she's left behind, the power she has yet to control. Santana worries so much sometimes that Brittany fears it will drag her down into the core of the earth, drowning her under the reaching roots of Yggdrasil.

"No sé, Brittany..."

The taller girl understands her fears and the repercussions that follow, but she has a nagging suspicion: remaining in these forests for much longer will carry a higher price than either of them are willing to pay.

"Santana, we have to go," she says, planting herself in front of the priestess until her size, almost a half-foot larger, threatens to dwarf her, "they're all looking for us and we don't know how to live here. I know you're scared... I'm scared too. If you wish to stay I won't ever stop you, but... I'd follow you, if you asked. I'd follow you and never look back." Brittany bites her lip as Santana's eyes sweep over her face, calculating, trying to tease out the meaning behind her words. The syllables have grown heavy and rest wrong in her chest, for she knows her friend is trying to tell her something that her mind has yet to unravel. It irritates her, being left in shadow.

"Please, just let us go back. I don't like it here. It reeks of secrets."

Santana hears the desperation and deflating stance. She loathes to walk upon those streets again with the judging eyes she thought she left behind, south of here, in the land of sun and heat, but she has come to realize that it won't ever leave her. Santana is coming to the dawning conclusion that she will always be watched, always be scorned, no matter where she chooses to roam. People are different, but humanity is the same.

She can't keep running away. And recently, she's found it impossible to say no to Brittany.

"Okay," she acquiesces, biting back a smile at the blooming joy on her companion's face, bright and as warm as Iberia ever was, "okay. Home."

"Home to Kaupang!"

* * *

><p>Their footsteps are the only indicators of their passing; laughter rings out, high and startlingly clear, free of burden. Brittany, used to the steep inclines and forests, often extends one dirt-caked hand for Santana to take, heaving her across chasms and rivers when she is too small to do so herself.<p>

Their skin tingles where they touch.

Santana was a bird finally taking flight with the gloss of her feathers absorbing the fractured sunlight. It shimmers and catches under her jaw, lighting her eyes into glow. Sometimes Brittany finds herself simply watching her, caught between saying so and keeping silent. Though the priestess did not understand her words, she has always been crystalline with her expressions when she did not care enough to hide. Brittany is by definition open, the opposite to herself.

Little by little the sky is devoured in dark and they huddle together in their mutual embrace as they watch the cold grey of the evening sky flatten out into the oily pool of midnight. Brittany knew of the frigid nights from harsh experience and brought with her a tunic lined with wool; she wraps herself around Santana's shivering form, her breath warm against her hair as she wards away the chill. She sleeps only in snatches while her friend slumbers on, too wary to dream but too tired to wake. Brittany is her cover that keeps her safe from harm until the pink light of dawn blooms across the watery sky.

In return Santana makes sure she eats, sneaking extra berries into the cup of her hands, sacrificing from her own stash in order to feed the taller girl. Their system of give and take is not obvious at first glance, but as the third day passes under the same cycle they learn little things that matter more than others.

(One night Santana forces Brittany to lay with her, pulling her close and pressing her healing palms over her tired eyes. Her words were almost harsh, but with an underlying affection as she struggled to keep her down despite her protests. She sung what she knew of _galdr_ until her throat was raw, and Brittany's dreams were the most vibrant they'd ever been - they painted her in blues and yellows and reds, swept her through violet oceans and into the heart of the hovering moon, sinking down to her bones and illuminating her ruby-red blood with all the patterns of summer. She woke to the earthen scent of Santana's ochre and the lingering orchids from her dreams that smeared sap all over her skin until she became one with the forest.

That day, Santana found a whole bird by her staff, neatly gutted and strung. Brittany sat a little ways away with a secret smile and feathered fingers.)

It is easy, simple. She learns it as she learned the spear: to always listen and adjust according to what it believes is right. By the fourth day they have grown in leaps in bounds, hands brushing nonchalantly without flinching and smiles given without shrouds. Brittany begins to think perhaps the Fates had given Santana this awakening for this reason alone, to show her the kindness humanity can bring.

A shame when it ends; these forests never stay silent for long.

* * *

><p>On their final day the world explodes into sound.<p>

A rumbling roar flows across the ground and disturbs all in its wake - animals blink into the noise, eyes deep and startled; rivers pause in their burbling; trees whisper to one another and sway precariously from their roots. The two companions raise their heads with white knuckles and dark eyes, carefree manner gone as they search out the shattering cry.

"Brittany, what?" Santana's face is tight with anxiety but her body is already beginning to hum, feeding off the fear in the earth and pulling it forcefully back to herself. She can feel the pain of the brush as it is trampled under some massive weight, ferns rejoicing as they gorge themselves upon thick blood that tumbles with vigour into their awaiting tendrils. Too much. It is heavy, cloying her nose with its invisible scent.

Brittany is frozen. She _knows_ that cry, still hears it sometimes when the hunting parties fan outwards with long spears and grim faces. Half of them never return. They have to _go_, they can't stay here, they aren't equipped for something like this. All they have is two women, a spear, and a power that doesn't wish to be used. Sandalio whimpers and flattens his ears over his small head.

Another screech, just as enraged, biting down into the quick of them. It lacks intelligence but has too much meaning that sweeps over them in buffeting waves; Sandalio disappears into the undergrowth (to cower or to stalk, Santana does not know) and they are left alone. She turns to Brittany to ask again, but takes pause at the stricken expression that curls around her face.

She is in the dark. _Again._ Frustrated, she shakes the girl.

"What is it?" She asks, stressing the syllables until they warp out of their intended alignment.

Brittany begins shaking her head, continuously, a stream of babble leaving her lips as the urge to run overpowers her rational thought. (In her opinion, fleeing is pretty natural at this point.) "Tröll..." She says, almost in a whisper, casting fearful eyes in its general direction. Gone is the cornflower blue and in its place something as dark as the Nordic oceans, deep and easy to drown in.

"A what?"

"Tröll!" Louder this time, its cry sounds horrifyingly close. They duck into the shivering brush, offering sparse but needed protection. In the distance comes the whinny of an injured horse.

"Then what are we doing here?" Santana hisses, gripping Brittany's arm until she leaves vicious half-moons in her skin. "We need to be moving, and certainly not in the direction all those noises are coming from. I'm unaware of what a "troll" is, but it does not sound pleasant in the slightest."

Brittany reaches back thoughtfully to palm the shaft of her spear. Every muscle in her body is screaming at her to run and never look back, if only for a few more hours, until they step foot into the safety of Kaupang and the men can trample through and kill the beast. Its bulk is so close they can hear the moan of the trees as it crashes through and splits trunks under his weight; she hears Santana mutter a quiet prayer to the ruined saplings and flinches as another slam of something heavy upon the ground ripples through the air.

But what of the women and children it could kill in its wake? They are _so close_ to the village it borders on dangerous. She can taste it upon the winds, the tang of blood and bile. It has already claimed a victim - Santana, too, can sense it, for she has grown pale and quiet, twisting her hands 'round and 'round in a complicated knot. Brittany is a warrior and is bound not only by duty but by honour to protect that which has been given unto her; by birth, she is required to give her life for the good of her people.

_(You are no longer a child, Bretagne. You are a man now, but also a woman. Use these two worlds wisely.)_

Her honour and her rationale wage wars in her mind. She is not ready to die - not now, not ever - nor is she willing to tuck tail and flee. Doing so will forever deny her the respect she so craves.

Brittany's jaw clenches nervously and by habit her eyes flicker over to Santana, watching anxiously, waiting almost on bated breath. The sunlight is generous in its pools of light and illuminates her hair, silk-soft, falling about in wild curls around her face. She gingerly takes one lock between slender fingers and attempts a smile. It comes out strange; shaky and lopsided.

Santana reads her before she even says anything.

"You cannot be serious. You honestly believe rushing in and playing the hero can attempt to fix this mess? It sounds like something foul has decided to eat horses for a meal, Brittany! This will be impossible to mend come morning with a smile like your stupid little games." The Spanish comes like quicksand, sliding through her fingers.

Even without the comfort of her language, Brittany understands her meaning. "Not stupid." She mutters with a frown, drawing away and rising to her feet. Santana's face softens minutely, a hissing sigh escaping from her nose.

"I know... I know. I apologize. But- Goddess, I've not finished with you!" Her cries go unheeded as the warrior begins to gingerly step towards the source of the commotion, eyes flickering to every shadow that the now foreboding light decides to cast. Santana hurries after her with whispered curses, backlit, a halo shrouded like a ring of fire around her form. _Fitting,_ Brittany thinks, _to burn at such a time. _"Do you entertain a suicide wish? Let yourself pray to your gods before you throw yourself into harm's way with no regard to your well-being!"

Brittany silently pulls the spear from her pack and sets it down upon the shattered trunk of a weeping tree, eyes raking carefully over the damage. Splintered through the center by some great impact - it never stood a chance. She grips the shaft as Santana's ranting swells into a crescendo, pointedly ignoring her irate tongue. _Let her be mad. Perhaps her anger will be of use. I will apologize if we live._

A pang goes through her at the thought of Santana lying dead in the earth because of her rashness. Her own death she can come to accept, given time and a fatal wound, but the mere image of Santana, crawling upon the dirt and clutching bloody robes sends a chill through her, born of doubts and second chances and vague premonitions that linger for days. Mayhaps she was wrong - how can she hope to kill a troll upon her own wit? She's not the most clever, that has well been known, nor does she possess the unfailing bravery these creatures require to best them. Fingers shaking now, she swallows thickly and notes how her throat has constricted to the point of imagined suffocation.

So used to Santana's rambling, she barely notes when she cuts herself off with a whispered _oh._

Brittany turns in time to see a mass of _something_ sailing through the air towards them, startlingly quick for its size. She yelps and tackles Santana to the ground, hitting hard and bouncing her jaw until it snaps back with a hard clack - blood already begins to seep into the cavity of her mouth as the adrenaline hits. A reflexive sucking inhale; Brittany spins on the spot in a crouch, gripping the spear so tight she threatens to break her bones. "Santana, go!"

"Britt-"

"Go!" Santana scrambles up and trips her way into the ruined bracken, muttering terrified curses and gathering courage the whole while.

Brittany lunges into a clumsy roll as the object comes down again - _a club, _ she realizes with numbing suddenness, _that thing is a club_ - and dents the earth behind her. Sticks jab into her ribs and the striped bruise howls with pain but she barely feels it, chest already heaving as she finally allows herself to take a look at her enemy.

She stares up at the tallest being she's ever seen.

There is hair everywhere. That is the first thought she processes beyond its daunting size, easily sailing through ten feet to top out with a head full of snared, tangled tresses that hang limply from its massive skull. Its eyes are barely visible through the folds in its skin, crushed closed under the overwhelming pressure of its hooked nose, as large as Brittany's forearm. Skin has erupted into sores, festering powerfully, soiled and filthy. Arms that could move mountains dangle down to ragged nails shaped into claws. In one hand it grips the crude bludgeon it has fashioned from the remains of a tree, roots snapping off with every blow.

Brittany swallows as they stare each other down - the troll has to bend in order to see her from its vantage. Her spear glints as precious jewels would but it is muted; daylight is scarce here through the thick foliage, the only thing stopping the monster from turning into stone. As if hearing her laments, clouds drift before the sun.

Broken, yellow teeth protrude from a gaping mouth in a grotesque smile when it spies its opponent. "Little lass think she kill Haakon?" _Male, then. _A belly laugh - fetid air blasts Brittany and almost makes her throw up her berries. "Pointy not even size of Haakon's arm!" To demonstrate he unfurls one massive fist, showing the dirt-smeared lines that run as deep as chasms into the flabby flesh.

"It takes little to kill something as slow as you!" Brittany growls back, reversing slowly to create distance and plan her attack. A kick from something that huge is a death wish, as is a direct blow from his weapon. If she could disable him... perhaps. It would give her a chance. She'd like to return to her father come the morn.

As it is with her fated clumsiness, her foot hits a massive rock and she tumbles backwards, landing in an awkward heap in the dust. The troll roars with laughter, planting its hands on its knees, spittle flying as the warrior fights to right herself again. When she kicks out for balance her heels lands solidly on the stone, causing it to let out a wheezing cough of agony. She freezes.

Before her is not a rock, but a horse. Its limbs mill feebly on the ground - from it she can see where two of the legs have snapped, twisted awkwardly with maggot-white bones popping out from the hide, ragged and sharp as flint. Blood seeps down the short hair and pools under the body while its flanks frantically work to draw in air she believes will never come. Hands already stained red, Brittany pushes herself up to her knees and continues her trace with a heavy weight in her gut - animals in suffering always drew both her sadness and her ire, and perhaps she could end its pain. A small act of kindness in its last minutes.

Yet, it has no neck for which she can cut.

In its place is a sleek human torso, muscles straining and painted with blood. The rivulets almost form tribal tattoos in which the swirls are whimsical, artistic, spiraling down to tell stories of the fated battle. A sucking chest wound gapes just below a handsome male face, pale and drawn with shock. An intricate bow lies near forgotten in its limp hand. It will not be long until the valkyrja come to take the being away.

Brittany has never once seen a centaur with her own eyes. Merely stories that were little more than myths, whispered by boys seeking excitement, speaking of a race that emerged from the south many years ago with strange languages that were half-human, half-animal. They knew of the forests and were the sole beings capable of surviving in their greatest depths; they took their weapons, their jewelry, their rituals, and vanished. Years passed without contact when a hunting party stumbled upon their enclave, they were awed by the complicated structures that housed the creatures. They were welcoming, if wary, and a bargain was struck, a treaty of peace to the two communities with no desire for bloodshed. The vikings knew the sight of a dangerous enemy, and while zealous, had no desire to wage war quite yet with such a powerful foe.

It has remained this way for centuries, always on the periphery of their minds. This one being so far out speaks of ill tidings. His death simply confirms what must have driven him forward.

"You will soon ride to Valhalla." She murmurs shakily, touching his cheek before rising from her knees. The troll has recovered and watches her curiously with barely-intelligent eyes, anticipating her next move, focused solely on Brittany and ignorant of the other girl, half-hidden in the cast shadows, pulsing and thrumming with the beginnings of her volatile, burning power.

Brittany moves before he anticipates it, ducking to his legs and sinking her spear down into the heel. It roars as the blade bites into the tendon but does not sever, the tough ligament as rigid as iron. She ducks under a wild swing and rolls away, yanking her weapon with her and feeling a small surge of satisfaction at the gush of blood. Her reach is her advantage as she repeats the attack, determined to break the connection and expose the kill.

She won't fail this time. This _thing_ does not deserve her pity, nor her retribution.

His massive claws scrape down her face as she jerks away, not breaking the skin but leaving angry red lines. Everything is coming in startling clarity and she feels almost as if she moves while the world is still in a standstill, raking her slick spear across his flesh - from this bursts forth a rotten river that pours down and feeds the earth, both purifying and corrupting the surrounding area. If by chance his remains do so turn to stone, they will see nothing more than a broken body, feeding from his death as he had taken from life.

A block - the force of the blow ripples right down to her feet and she cries out in pain, shoulders protesting the vicious strike as she catches his fist against the shaft of her spear. Brittany is amazed when the wood does not break or bend, simply absorbing the blow and redirecting it to herself. She half-collapses and scrambles with it, wheezing to try and catch her breath. Sweat stings her eyes, but she clogs them with blood as she attempts to wipe it away.

All it seems to have been doing is make the monster more enraged; his eyes have completely disappeared though she assumes he can still see, taut lips spread over a mouthful of what could constitute broken knives. Her slices have cut deep into the muscles of his arms, but do not serve to cripple. Still, his heel surges with blood whenever he moves. Her only chance.

With a mighty yell she rushes him, ignoring the protesting of her limbs, lunging behind to plunge in her weapon. Behind it rears all the strength she can muster from her lean frame, listening to the loud squish of flesh parting before the rage of metal. He howls - the sound is shattering, traveling across mountains and through valleys, mouth wide open into a roar.

Her victory is short-lived even as the monster sinks to one knee. She tries to retreat but finds her spear stuck, lodged in so deep it wishes not to come out. Blind with fury the troll reaches back, massive hands grabbing her tight around the torso and crushing her close until all the air in her lungs forcefully expels in a choked, pained sound.

"Stupid little!" He screeches, shaking her until she fears her head will roll loose. "That hurt! Now _you _hurt!" When his hands tighten further she hears her bones grinding together, ribs groaning under strain they were never supposed to endure.

This is it. She'll die at the hands of an ugly brute, her body never found for he will undoubtedly eat what remains. Her arms are trapped at her sides and her breathing comes shallow and useless, searching for oxygen she cannot find.

"Die, little viking girl!"

Her vision greys, sound receding. Somewhere, her mind mumbles prayers to Odinn.

"Hey!" A flash of blinding light and a high-pitched squeal of pain - she hits the ground with a jarring thud and lays there, gasping and heaving and choking on her own tongue. Through the tears that have sprung forth comes the return of life. She spies a blurry figure almost _gliding_ towards them, lit aflame with a cloud of sacred white that contrasts so vividly against her void-black hair. Her eyes are glowing, illuminated from within; an internal light that almost blinds Brittany as her hands curl into claws and from them shoots another bang - a clap of thunder, a scream of pain. Santana.

Brittany heaves herself to her hands and knees, fingers fumbling at her belt until she touches the weather-worn handle of her axe. Through the ache the smell of burning flesh assaults her nose - though the troll clutches at his face wildly, she can see Santana cradling her arms to herself and gritting her teeth against the power that threatens to spiral out of control or extinguish completely.

Time and time again, her father had driven into her head the power of opportunity. She cannot waste such a great one, not when so much is on the line.

She staggers forward and yanks the smaller weapon from her belt, it hanging limply at her side to tap heavily against her thigh. Her chest protests vividly but she ignores the burn, focused on only one thing. To her, the fact that Santana hurts is worse than her own wounds. He will pay for his transgressions.

One swing scores a deep gash along his hidden cheekbone. It opens simply a sliver, but the sight of red is all the incentive she requires to hone in on her real target. Time after time the axe flashes down, caught in the reflection of Santana's radiance, blade sliding through the flesh in his neck until his wounds open up into bloom, spraying foul blood everywhere. He gasps and gurgles, falling onto his back, bringing the enraged warrior with him. Brittany is soaked in blood, handle slippery and falling out of her fist, but she does not stop until her arm is aching and her ribs refuse to let her go on.

His limbs shudder for a few moments before he falls silent, fountains still spurting into the air.

The axe falls from her wet grasp; she feels his essence drip down her jaw, soak through her tunic, clump the strands of her hair. Her world has been reduced to copper and iron and death.

He was not human, but she has still taken a life so savagely. For some strange reason, it disappoints her more than it should scare.

All the light is sucked from the trees, their dancing flickers turning off as one would snuff out a candle. Brittany turns slowly to Santana. The priestess watches her unflinchingly despite the exhaustion in her eyes and the tremble of her fingers, not viewing her with the disgust she's sure she deserves. She feels tainted, his life staining her lips, reducing her to something less than she was before.

One of Santana's hands, newly burned and opened, tentatively reach out until her fingers rest on her damp, sweaty neck. She tugs gently at the wispy hairs there, shaking her head. "It good, Brittany." Her approval means more than she can ever know, and it starts a smile on Brittany's quivering mouth. For now, it is enough.

A hoarse whisper breaks them apart.

They stumble over to the broken body of the centaur. He watches them from glassy eyes, forehead smeared in a cold sweat, fingers turning blue. Death will not be long for him now.

"That was... impressive, Bretagne." He wheezes in halting Norse, blood bubbling from his mouth that Brittany attempts to wipe away with her coated sleeve. "You did what I could not."

"I only finished what you started, clan-man. Death was simply the result."

Santana's hands ghost over his twitching flanks, fluttering uselessly at all the damage presented to her. He smiles weakly at the sentiment but shifts his head into the vague approximation of a decline. "Tell her... not t-to bother. I will cross... in due time."

Silently, Brittany laces their smallest fingers away and tugs her back. Santana follows only to settle by his head, murmuring prayer and petting his matted hair from his forehead.

"How do you know my name?" She asks, lowering herself down with a wince. He should not talk, in order to make himself as comfortable as possible, but it would be awful lonely to die in a forest with noone around to accompany you into your last moments.

"W-we know of all... the vikings, Bretagne. A-and of-" he coughs, a horrible sucking sound. Blood spurts from his wounds. "their people. T-the priestess." His clouded eyes float upwards to Santana where she stares back curiously. "S-uch... power in one s-so young. Both o-of you. You... stay. Together. Promise me."

Her fist thumps over her heart and she dips her head to the dying creature, satisfied when he responds with a ghost of a smile. "Good. N-now... take my amulet."

"What?"

"T-the medallion. Take it."

She spies a beautiful chain, bloodied but still gleaming, slung around his neck. The pendant, a coiled snake crusted with gems, rests heavily on his stuttering chest.

"I-I don't..."

"No," he rasps, hand flailing until it rests on her knee, "y-you will. You have... avenged me. This was a gift... from m-my father. The chieftain." She swallows; this shattered creature could have been her, sacrificing her spear to the saviours of her honour. He knows of burden just as well as she. "If you see him... t-tell him that you have hon-oured my blood-oath and... show h-him this. He will aid you."

Brittany shifts from her spot on the ground, wary. Something does not sit right about what he weaves. "Why would I require aid?"

He smiles again - fainter, the light in his eyes almost gone. "No time. You will see... things come, Bretagne. I-it is inevitable."

Her fingers reach out and wrap around the flesh-warmed metal, yanking until it comes from his neck with a soft snap. The snake pools in her palm, eyes blindly upturned, curious scales taking on the returning glow of sunlight.

The warrior barely hears Santana invoke the Goddess to guide his soul to her domain, focused on the rattle of his lungs as he finally exhales his final breath, flanks heaving once before going still. The blood, once gushing from his wounds, has slowed to a trickle. Combined with the troll's corpse that still leaks, they have sat themselves in a sea of red. The tang of metal upon her tongue makes her dizzy with disgust.

What of this aid she requires? Is he really the chieftain's son? Will the kinsmen have to know of his death? Her mind spins with so many unanswered questions that they all tangle together and halt her thoughts, creating one large knot that sends spikes of pain behind her eyes. She closes them momentarily to take solace in darkness, only to open them once more as a different sound takes over the sudden suffocating silence.

Santana presses her emptied medicine horn to her lips - from it comes a low, clear note that sounds sorrowfully from the hollowed item. It stretches out into the very edges of the fjord and sails across the treetops, repeating its call when the previous fades off into the fabric of the skies. Its message is true, if stark, stripped clean and purified. Mourning.

When the last blast fades out and Brittany asks her why, she simply shrugs. It seemed like the right thing to do.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Just a quick apology for talking longer this time, but a massive thank you to everybody that reviewed last chapter! I was so flattered by every encouraging word... it seems you all like trolls, hm? I'll make sure to keep that in mind. As per usual, a shout-out and thanks to my beta, LeMasquerade, who without you probably wouldn't have chapters like these.

* * *

><p>Chapter 8<p>

**all around the world was waking**

**I never could go back**

**June 12****th****, 912**

On the end of the scorching summer sun came the rain, sweeping in through the howling fjord in bitter gales that turned the landscape to mud. People stayed within their homes seeking shelter from the downpour; it continued for countless hours and soon enough they were forced back out into the squall without regard for their own well-being. Whenever you moved your feet would sink, ankle deep, into the cold mud, sucking at your legs and making each movement a struggle. Children fell in to their waists and held like iron, ships capsized, people fell ill one by one from exposure. Every night the women prayed, begging an end to the foul weather that was slowly turning their village into a landslide.

On the fifth day, it slowed to a miserable mist that left one damp and uncomfortable, but not drenched. Fishermen cautiously wandered out to sea with their nets and harpoons, the smell of wet wood following their creaking sails. Trading began anew, throwing much produce away that had rotted and spoiled. Many viewed it as an omen - mere hours after Betar had agreed the accursed priestess was to be let back into their town, the rain started with ferocity.

Santana simply calls it bad luck.

At least, that's what _she_ believes it is (she knows all about omens, eyeing the beautiful figurehead of a splendid ship docked in port) as she stands impatiently on one of the docks. Her hood is thrown up over her head to shield herself from the worst of the spray, face shadowed to highlight only her lips, sucked into her mouth and red from worrying. The stares from the villagers penetrate her feathered cloak and set her teeth on edge, shoulders hunched protectively as if they would ward off the suspicion.

Her feet are sodden and frozen from the muck she's already had to trudge through this morn, the bottoms of her robes a mess, the end of her staff thick and caked with filth. She's due to meet with Brittany soon, but doesn't know if she'll go through all this hassle simply to learn how to hold a sword. In weather like this, they're bound to catch yet another illness that will bed them for days - being so stationary will drive her mad with inaction.

Not that she's quite as stable as one would wish right now. Coming home, there have been constant eyes, voices, ears that see and speak and hear. They're everywhere - never-ending - and her whole body thrums with barely contained energy, the dragon in her belly unfurling into the smallest vessel of her fingers and refusing to be thrown back into its cage. The villagers have lost whatever trust they had gained in her, for now she is the stranger with trembling hands and suspicious eyes. Even now, they watch.

"Stop looking at me like that," she snarls at the maiden strung atop the bow of the ship, her sightless gaze now twisted to peer in Santana's general direction, "you're nothing but a foul trick of magic. Why do you even interest yourself in me? I pay no heed to _omens _and _signs,_ even as Mami never ceased to remind me of their importance. I would do the same to you."

It doesn't reply, naturally, but she grows unnerved by the unseeing gaze, knowing that the wood was originally facing forward. Her fingers fidget and she grinds her jaw, her staff tapping agitatedly against the boards. Everything recently had been a warning of some sort, her new _mentor_ (Santana uses the word loosely) seeing danger in every person that passes. She blinks once, and nearly falls to the ground when the raven perched on the carved maiden's shoulder has somehow spread its wings into full extension.

Her bones nearly leave her skin and she shrieks in alarm, loosing blundering curses as she hastily gathers the beginning wisps of swirling matter into the cup of her darkly ringed, blistered hand.

Santana's new power, constantly rumbling and crackling after so many failed attempts at control, rears at the slightest inclination. Such surprise jostles it to the point where she feels a million needles are pressing out from under her skin, begging it to open and be let free."I have a right mind to burn you down to the ground! By the ancestor's bones, never have I seen the Fates toy with me so, unless they enjoy bringing mortals to their wit's ends to leave them stark raving fools-"

A large weight falls on her shoulder - she spins and attempts to plant her staff into the gut of her opponent, but it is held fast by a weight superior to hers. Santana struggles for a moment, ceasing her fight only when another voice reaches her ears. "'Lo, priestess, stop with your struggling. It is unbecoming of a lady to curse like you do."

She scowls and shoves Noach away. "And who says I am a lady?"

A smirk. "Now _that_ is nothing but the truth."

Santana softens minutely, shaking herself. The influx of pulsating blue vanishes as soon as it appears. "What are you doing here, Noach? Haven't you any north-women to harass?"

He huffs and rolls his eyes, pushing his hands into his pockets. She caught him but once, and now it seems it would be his reputation until the end of her days.

"Simply making sure you stop scaring the locals with your ranting and raving. They already believe you half-mad, why are you strengthening their opinions?"

Santana sputters helplessly, hands flailing in the direction of the ship. "Are you blind? Do you not see the way the wood moves? It is mocking me and my inability to listen to signs!" At his dubious expression she casts a wary eye to her side where the maiden has now seen fit to stare straight ahead with a blank expression, as normal. The raven's wings are neatly tucked by its side. Everything feels too hot; the prickles along her flesh returning with a vengeance. To her dismay, the view of her world is concealed in white. "So _now_ they decide to behave? I swear I will be utterly insane by the time I can finally return home."

"You can go home?"

Santana curses her choice in words. "I mean... only if the crusaders fail... a-and if I want to." She looks around helplessly at the boggy town and the roads that still swell with life, bloated from the fortitude of a population that refused to take no as an answer. "I might not. I... I enjoy it here, despite my problems."

"Any of that have to do with a certain tall viking?" He grins impishly, raking his hand over his single strip of his hair - it was shaved off in the night as a joke from his crewmen, but he's since refused to remove the rest of it. She thinks he looks completely ridiculous.

"What are you talking about?" Her nose wrinkles in distaste. "Finngeirr is about as attractive as he is competent, which is not at all. How did he even injure himself? One would think his blubber would save him from damage..."

Noach snorts to himself - he can't help it, the image of a whale-sized boy is enough to saturate his already vivid imagination. He knows not where Santana's ire for the lanky adolescent stems from, but he certainly isn't one to deter her words. In a way he's smug, being the only one able to talk to her like this, where her desert-dry humour and astute yet insulting observations may be fully appreciated. And in turn he gets to talk with more than his shipmates, who have been steadily driving him insane over the past months of being stationed in the town.

"I was speaking of Bretagne, priestess. That one is infinitely more attractive than _Finn._" Noah cares little about the boy, shortening his name with a mocking curl of his tongue.

To his surprise, she hums in agreement. His eyebrows raise and she stares at him before catching herself, eyes darting to the side. She clenches her hands - he notes the glow from them with wary concern. "Anything is more attractive than him, Noach. A rock could give him competition."

Her voice is deceptively light and strained. Within it he detects a hint of something dark that he cannot place but perhaps doesn't want to, for her temper is notorious when provoked. It is, in part, why the village is now so wary of her - they believe she can snap with just a feather's touch. His hands are certainly heavier than that.

"Is that why you've stationed yourself here?" He asks, fishing to break the uncomfortable tension settled upon their shoulders like her cloak. "Gathering rocks for Eyja? Surely she would give you a basket for your troubles."

Santana scowls, but the attempt is half-hearted. "I wait for Mikhail. She sent me down to gather some strange stones for her lesson, as _obviously_ she is much too busy to do it herself." Santana rolls her eyes - from under her hood, the whites flash against the darkened skies. "What rocks have to do with control remains to be seen."

Earlier on in the day she had held the stones in her hands, turning them over and over, the smooth surface pleasing to the touch as her thumb wiped over the engravings until it seemed etched upon her very flesh. _Rumusteinn_, Eyja had murmured, her snow-white skin blinding against the grey of the stones. At Santana's touch the inscriptions had started to glow - if she listened hard enough to the world surrounding her there were whispers of a thousand voices, overlapping each other in waves like the hush of the sea. It was calming in the best of ways, their weight anchoring in the centers of her broken palms.

So perhaps she dismisses the priestess too readily. It's difficult _not_ to jab at her, with her cinnamon strand hair and eyes as large as eggs, voice high and grating; somehow she influences Santana with thought alone, often guiding her ruminations in one direction in order to get her point across. Santana is readily coming to the conclusion that the language of magic is universal.

"What did we say about your temper?" Noach says teasingly, "She only does what is best for you, not unlike some hovering mother constantly being hounded by a neurotic elfling."

"Her obsession with cleaning is rather strange..."

Santana's initial observation of her home had been... sceptical, to say the least. Everything was straightened on the shelves with equal spacing, not a single book out of place or marked down, nor was any sort of page creased or overturned. The floor was painstakingly spotless, a lush broom leaning against one wall, her shoes neatly tucked beside the door where she walked in another pair of softer soled slippers, almost silk-fine - the owner just as fragile. _What was the point of having different pairs of shoes? _Santana had thought with a frown, _all you do is have to put them back on when you return outside_.

The shack that housed the injured youth - much to Santana's ire - was somewhere Eyja barely touched, for she'd flinch at the slightest inkling of a spider's web that spun itself delicately across the ceiling. Santana took great joy in exaggeratedly removing their soiled bandages, firmly exposing the still glistening flesh underneath and brushing by the older woman with the linen precariously close to her sleeves and watching as whatever little colour she possessed seemed to drain out of her alabaster complexion.

Brittany had scolded her, but it was completely worth it.

Her hands have not stopped shimmering, nor her fingers stopped trembling. Noach hesitantly reaches out to touch the back of her palm but pulls back at the searing skin that meets his own. "Are you well, priestess? You glow."

She frowns and flexes her limbs. Whatever had been released refused to go back in its cage after the battle with the troll - it comes now without hesitation or prejudice, bursting forth in a spectacular display of light that burns all around it. Her hands ache with constant healing and the flesh of her palms are a mess of ringed scars in various stages of disrepair. It's like she can't turn _off_; upon returning she has been nothing but jumpy and agitated, any type of patience dissipated in the reveal of this untenable force. Brittany's home has its fair share of scorch marks from conversations turned into unwilling battles.

"This is what Eyja is trying to fix," she sighs, resisting the urge to check over her shoulder, "so that I don't accidentally destroy a building. I wish I could explain it. It drives me - and certainly Brittany - to the point of insanity."

A quiet shuffle reaches their ears, almost indistinguishable from the drizzling rain that now splatters down all around them. It is as if the grief of the sky was too heavy and its weight had opened the maw of the clouds, bleeding their wounds downwards and bathing the towns in their blood. Flashes of lightning periodically sound in the distance, but the mist has simply progressed into light spittle that proves to be little more than an annoyance.

Santana's whole body tenses in an effort to keep still, one hand curling into a fist, fighting back the irrational panic that comes in an onslaught. She has flashes of blood and foul breath, Brittany's body clamped between massive hands. The familiar energy roaring through her ears to bring her higher than she's ever been.

Moments later Mikhail appears from the gloom, mouth split into an easy smile and hand basket slung over one powerful forearm. Her muscles instantly unwind, hands opening into bloom; new, angry marks sear the healing surface. The wounds are sore to the touch and overlap old scars. Grimacing, she catches Mikhail's concerned stare - Santana can't help but note the lack of cloak that drenches him down to the bone.

"Hello, Santana," he greets cautiously, dipping his head so that water slides off the tip of his nose, "and hello, Noach." The sailor smiles awkwardly, unable to pick out the simplest of words. Santana returns the greeting without hesitation - she doesn't know how many times Brittany had repeated _kveðja_ to her with an amused smile before she finally got the sounds to sit together - and reaches out to tug at a strand of his near-dripping hair that betrays how long he's been outside.

"Sál?" She asks him curiously, her own fluttering about her knees. His eyes flicker to her in confusion and narrow carefully.

After living for so long with Brittany, he's grown adept at puzzling out misshapen sentences.

Mikhail sees her fingers fiddle with her damp cloak as she looks at him with apprehension, bottom lip sucked into her mouth. She seems somewhat frustrated, taking his lack of response to mean something negative.

"_Sjal, _priestess." He corrects her, pointing at her shawl. And in return, he tugs at the collar around his neck.

Slaves don't receive cloaks - why would they? Something less than human doesn't deserve precious material. (Brittany tried to give one to him once, but he was beaten badly for carrying it around. Her guilt was overwhelming, he comforted her for days.)

She files it away wherever she keeps her ideas and nods, flicking droplets from the rim of her hood. Her speech is slowly starting to come together, loose sentences strung together by feeling more than tangible sense. It's how she seems to do everything these days.

"Hér eru steinar þín!" To combat the silence that has begun to descend upon them he shuffles over the soaked hand basket to her, the flat, fist-sized stones within jostling with the movement. She takes them gingerly, shifting them around with her fingers, twisting it over and over in her hand in an attempt to conjure an inkling of the calmness she had felt earlier in the day.

All there seems to be is frustration and an ever growing rage.

Ever since realizing she had to tend to the two who attacked her, something was swirling inside of her. An extension of the unruly force - a hurricane that is loath to be contained, tainting her tongue and causing her vowels to snap more than usual, harsh and venomous. Even looking upon their faces - either stained with sweat or contorted in fear - sends a wave of that rushing energy to splash along the confines of her ribcage, searing the inside of her sternum and writing runes along the bone. She grins in twisted pleasure when her salted knuckles press into their wounds, setting the still-broken flesh on fire. It seems only fair.

Noach peers over her shoulder and his breath is hot against her neck. "Empty?" True to his word, there are no markings upon their slate, simply smooth rock whose imperfections have been washed away by the ages. She frowns and picks up one after the other, rotating them slowly, as if they could be hiding from the rain. "Empty?" She echoes, this time glancing up at Mikhail in confusion.

He shrugs - magic has never been his favourite, hidden truths shrouded in bright lights. "Talk to Eyja," he offers, shaking his head to rid himself of the rain. The gods had really drawn no pity for them this time, "She knows."

Santana taps one on her wrist, weight steady in her hand, before casting another glance to the side. (She swears the wooden hair flickers in the wind and she's _had it_.) She bids her goodbyes and sets off into the village, steeling herself for an entirely different reason.

* * *

><p>A measured exhalation. The power in her back surges as long, pale fingers steadily grip the shaft of the thin spear, lining its length up with her extended forearm. Brittany stands poised to strike, one arm pulled back, every muscle taut and defined as she flicks water out of her vision. From many feet away, the target looms - a challenge.<p>

She likes these moments best. Where there's nobody else to judge her and she can simply do what she wishes without the certainty that one mishap will reflect badly on her whole family. The lightweight javelin - darkened from the rain, metal tip gleaming - barely wavers in the air as she takes a few lengthy strides before following through her movement with a strained grunt. Her shoulder heaves as she throws the weapon - it whistles straight and true through the air and cuts through the mist like a knife, coming to rest with a soft _thunk_ in the target in front of her. Just a few finger-width's shy of center circle. Brittany frowns and doesn't try to blame it on the rain.

The warrior's never been the best at throwing spears, so used to her heavier one made for thrusting and slashing. Their weight puts her off and her aim always falters at the last second, her release crooked. Sometimes it's the difference between a kill and an infuriating injury.

"Left." She startles and turns around, gripping her new javelin so tight she threatens to break the wood. Opposite her, Santana jumps too, stumbling back a step with wide eyes until she regains herself. She is drenched - even with her hood Brittany can see the tendrils of dark hair clinging to her jaw, clumping her eyelashes together. Her feet must be filthy, because the bottom of her robe definitely is. "What?" Brittany asks inquisitively, waiting until Santana calms herself down from whatever scare she seemed to have.

"Go left." She says again. Santana fights to keep the strain out of her voice but it's there anyway, seashell fragile, her eyes darting back every so often to the bustle of the village. From where they're situated, far up above on the hill, the town sprawls out like the massive coral reefs she's glimpsed through her travels. They can see everything that happens in the streets, from the tiniest trade to the brawl outside of the tavern on the outskirts.

Brittany studies her for a moment but ultimately shrugs. She trusts Santana's judgement - what else is there to do? She steps several paces and flings it with another almighty huff (she doesn't notice the flinch) with a slight flair of her wrist and watches in confusion as it embeds itself dead in the center of her goal.

"How...?" She starts but stops herself at Santana's shrug. Her eyes simply say _I just knew_ and Brittany takes that answer for what it's worth because sometimes the priestess never knows how to explain the things she does. Like the strange white glow that chases around her fingers, or the random bursts of perfect Norse that spills out from her like a cup that's too full in a voice that's not her own. The priestess motions hesitantly for her to pick up the last spear that rests on a tree stump beside them.

Brittany's sore and sweaty and she frowns her discontent, asking with the pull of her eyebrows if it's really necessary. The responding movement of Santana sucking in her raw bottom lip has her mindlessly reaching for the thin javelin without much of a fight. Sometimes it's frightening how easily she gives in to her will.

But as she lines up the final shot on the still swaying target, a low hum touches her ears. Faint at first, it begins to grow in power the longer she holds the weapon until it sweeps through her in waves. She looks back at Santana with palpable confusion for the source of the noise and finds her sitting down on the stump, eyes scrunched in concentration, notes like clear water running through her lips. Brittany simply wants to kneel at her feet and watch for hours; her skin glows and her nose crinkles and it's entirely possible Santana is the most beautiful thing that Brittany's ever seen. She touches one hand absently to her abdomen, pressing against the bizarre, fluttering feeling that makes her feel like her stomach is in free fall.

With new purpose Brittany runs up and fires off her shot - it soars from her grasp with startling accuracy. Her muscles positively _heave_ with effort but she barely moves - she feels as a mountain: so very solid with power rippling just under her skin. They both watch in disbelief as it strikes true again...

And sends itself straight through the target.

It buries itself in the tree behind, eight feet away. The whole of the blade sinks through and the shaft vibrates from the force. Brittany turns to Santana who is studiously avoiding her gaze.

"Galdr?" Brittany asks cautiously, flexing her arm and noting with slight disappointment that her bicep isn't any bigger. She chose to wear only a vest today, as the sleeves clinging to her skin make her feel claustrophobic.

(Santana's eyes linger perhaps a second too long on her braced limb, but she thinks little of it.)

Santana shrugs one shoulder. "Eyja." She offers up in explanation. Her voice is of thunderstorms, gathering and rolling and still crackling with strength that aches to break through. It sends all the little hairs on the back of Brittany's neck straight up, like static teasing them out into the wind.

It's obvious she doesn't want to talk about it.

All of their conversations have escalated into petty fights recently, Santana's paranoia reaching new heights like never before seen. Brittany is _tired_ of needlessly defending herself, but even more tired of not knowing what's going on. It's so rare for her to be out of the loop with Santana that she finds herself lost in her presence. It's alien and unwelcome and she almost always sees the hidden apology in her eyes after a rather vicious snap in Spanish she knows is never flattering, but it's still hard. Sometimes she's awoken by arcs of angry white light dancing between Santana's hands like sparks, restless even in sleep.

"Good," she says needlessly to fill the silence, turning around to rummage in her pile of weaponry that she'd stashed underneath the protective canopy of a tree. Brittany feels Santana's curious eyes burning holes into her back but instead turns around with a worn staff, running one finger along the length of the shaft, satisfied when her skin refuses to splinter. Smooth. "Come here!" She says cheerfully to counter the gloomy skies.

Santana swallows but shuffles herself into a standing position. Even though she knows down to her very quick that Brittany would never hurt her, the casual way she holds the weapon in her hand and the remembrance of how she hacked open the flesh of the troll's neck sits uneasily with her new-found wariness. Underneath her skin, the dragon stirs.

Her hesitation must be obvious, as Brittany's face falls. The hand holding the staff droops slightly with dejection and her eyes lower to the ground. _Idiot_, Santana hisses to herself, _now she thinks you have no trust in her! Fix this mess! _In an effort to rectify her blunder she hustles towards the viking with large steps, foot sinking into the mud each time until her boot stays where it lands and she stumbles right into Brittany's awaiting body.

Her world disappears into wetness and strength and the strange mix of warmth and coolness. She sees stars for a second and something deliciously feral flushes through her system - she feels infinite in her energy and the way it makes everything shake - as she settles into the strong lines of the Brittany's form, her shirt soaking under her cheek. Beneath her skin the white river explodes and positively _burns _her insides until her body flushes with heat and sweat beads on her brow. (It seems the universe is trying to tell her something, but she can't figure out what it could be.) Brittany exhales in surprise and the air rushes past her ear; Santana smells tea and spearmint and all of a sudden it's too much, the rise of her chest under her face and the warmth of her body and how her world has narrowed down to _her_. She begins to flail blindly, needing to get away from her smothering scent lest she hurt them both or melt into a puddle or something equally disastrous.

Brittany must sense her panic because she carefully pushes Santana to arm's length and studies her intently, feels her slim form positively trembling under her touch with palpable concern. Her fingernails rake frantically at her own skin, splitting the healing flesh, trying desperately to erase something unseen as the shimmer on her skin increases in intensity. Brittany murmurs shapeless words, voice soothing and low, an iceberg to counter her desert. Under her calming gaze the frenzy in chocolate eyes stills, and her quaking recedes to the odd shudder whenever Brittany's thumbs brush over her biceps. Her nails cease their frantic scratching.

"Santana?" She asks cautiously.

Santana flushes in embarrassment, unable to be seen, but the heat still floods through her flesh. "I sorry." She mutters helplessly, clenching her hands into tight fists. Instead of being overwhelming, Brittany's presence against her arms is grounding, not too cloying but just close enough. "Know not... happens."

She's noticed. It's been hard not to. The way Santana flinches back from the feeling of her blanket against her bare legs, the cringe of wool on her fingers, the constant hazy glow that accompanies her at all hours. Sometimes Brittany would watch her shift for eons, throwing off the light blanket only to pull it back towards her as the chill began to set. Restless, like a frightened snake ready to strike. Her frustration only feeds into her anxiety, and so repeats the cycle with unprecedented viciousness.

With a sigh, Brittany shakes her head. "Fine," she accepts, but opens her expression at Santana's disbelieving stare. "it _is_ fine, Santana. Truly."

In an attempt to move past Santana's obvious discomfort, she takes the staff - forgotten in the turmoil - and presses it into her fingers. Her grasp automatically closes upon the object even when she stares at her companion in confusion. Brittany smiles brightly, a stark contrast against the dull sky. "Teach you!" She says with as much enthusiasm as she can muster (which is a lot, she's so excited to be of use that she can hardly stay still).

Brittany steps back a few paces, either ignoring or oblivious to Santana's dubious stare, and spreads her arms wide. She quirks her eyebrows at Santana, who stands still in the muck, watching her curiously with the weapon still clenched inside her fist.

"Hit me."

Santana reverses back a step. "What?"

"Hit me." The order is calm and knowing. Brittany just watches her with that _look_ that tells her she can't hide no matter what she does, her eyes tracing her form languidly and without care. It sets Santana on edge as her mind whispers nonsensical things to her, of not letting her get too close, but never too far away that she can't see the blue of her gaze.

_Be silent!_ With clenched teeth Santana throws her arm into the swing. Brittany sees it coming from feet away and pulls one hand upwards, catching Santana's staff and carrying her momentum along with her until she stumbles away. Santana whirls around with a glare and Brittany simply raises her eyebrows in amusement.

She strikes again, another wild shot. Brittany blocks this with her forearm - careful not to show the flicker of discomfort as the wood snaps against her bare skin - and twists until she's got one strong hand curled around the shaft. She yanks and Santana comes with it until they are mere inches away. "Careful," Brittany says, and Santana blinks as her hot breath ghosts along her skin, "too fast. Þú þarft að vera nákvæm."

Santana tilts her head in confusion. "Nákvæm?"

Blonde hair shifts over Brittany's shoulders as she shakes her head from side to side a few times, mouth opening and closing on words that refuse to come out. Santana studies her intently - it's simple from this close. The narrowing of her light eyes and the purse of her lips betrays her frustration as she rummages around in her head for letters to snap together, the crinkle of her nose, how her tongue peeks out delicately for a moment, only to retreat at the displeasing combination of rainwater and sweat. Her expression darkens the longer it takes until Santana can't bare the helpless look painted on her face.

"Santana, I... know not..." Going by feeling alone, she starts when three delicate fingers lay themselves across her lips. Her mind blanks for a moment - Santana laughs at her vacant expression, skin tingling and pressing outwards where her fingertips touch Brittany's mouth. "Fine, Brittany. Fine. Help?" She shakes the staff, forgotten in their proximity.

Brittany's cheeks fill with red as she nods.

* * *

><p>"Good, Santana!" Brittany calls as she narrowly blocks another hit, dancing back just out of range. Hours (maybe days) have passed since her initial blundering attacks. Under Brittany's guidance her form begins to have a bit of snap, her strokes surer and more controlled. She realized what the viking was trying to tell her earlier - it's all about <em>precision.<em> Brute strength means little if it does nothing more than break your weapon and enrage your opponent.

Brittany's arms are covered in bruises, but she stops herself from feeling guilty. It is what she wanted, after all.

She advances again and Santana lashes out, the end of her staff flashing to plant itself in the crevice of Brittany's hip. There is a moment of surprise on finer features before the whole joint collapses around the pressure and she goes sprawling back into the mud, tucking herself into a clumsy roll at the last second and stumbling to her feet. Santana laughs - full and deep, the first today - at Brittany's stunned expression, dripping mud. Her sheets of blonde hair have been matted with brown and cling together, awkward and thick, on the back of her head. She attempts to wipe away splashes of it on her face, simply smearing it when she realizes her hands are also filthy.

"_Santana_!" She whines helplessly, reaching back to try and claw the worst out of her locks. Wearing her hair loose today was a bad idea - she sees the Oslofjord in her future and a very cold bath.

Santana takes pity on her petulant expression and shuffles behind her, swatting at her to stay still and beginning to comb the muck from her sullied hair. This proximity is bearable, where her hands won't risk electrocution, teasing their way through the slick strands and flinging away globs of filth from her companion. From this angle she looks almost like a swamp-monster, similar to the ones told in fairy tales in her homeland; horrible creatures that rise up from the deeps to snatch away unsuspecting children into the bottom of their homes. The adults had all scoffed at these tales, but her Mami always simply shook her head and told Santana to never go near the swamps after dark.

A quiet hum comes from her lips as she gingerly works out the slime, snickering every so often when she reaches a particularly matted clump. Brittany huffs and rocks backwards to make her job more difficult, and Santana feels the pout on her lips without meeting her eyes. Rain has begun to pelt down in buckets, stinging her shoulders, but Santana barely feels the slice. Her fingers brush themselves against Brittany's neck every so often and she notes the chills that seem to rack her lankier frame.

"Cold?" She asks (her mind flashes to damp earth and body heat and a smile so kind it still twists her insides) but Brittany shakes her head furiously, strands of her muddy hair shaking around to slap Santana's skin and splay out on her own slender shoulders. Sometimes she forgets how feminine Brittany can be, stuck in her tunics and weapons and harsh words.

Thinking Santana is done as her fingers still, Brittany turns around quickly (too quickly, too quickly) in an effort to thank her. Santana yelps at the sudden movement - her dragon drives her actions at the _danger_ that flares needlessly in her own head and brings her staff down roughly, with all the power she can muster. The flat end of her staff speeds down with brutal force to connect with Brittany foot. There is a muffled thump, a cry of pain, and the splash of a body falling down into the wet.

Brittany curls into a ball and digs her thumbs into the joint of her ankle in an effort to relieve the spasm, agony shooting all the way up to her hip when she tries to move it. It hurts too much to even try to relieve it on her own, eyes squinted shut as she desperately wishes for Mikhail's soothing hands to come and unwind her muscles. She can almost _feel _her tender flesh knotting in that same place, deep within her ankle, an Achilles Heel on a different part of her body.

"Oh Goddess, Brittany!" Santana follows on her knees and the earth squelches underneath her weight. She babbles meaningless Spanish and Brittany groans, her head shifting in the muck until she's lifted and placed in Santana damp lap, her fingers shakily combing their way through her once again matted locks. She wipes the dirty water from her forehead and pulls her face as far from the mud as she can, clenching her hands against the crackles of sparks that flare up whenever they touch.

_Now is not the time_, she growls to herself, sucking in a deep breath and holding it until she fills to bursting. Blue replaces white, washing over her consciousness, bringing her under the waves.

Her palms tenderly lay themselves across Brittany's cheek and the prone girl groans in relief when a cooling balm seeps through her veins, reducing her ankle to a dull throb. She is anchored unspeakably to Santana - somehow she feels every beat of the mystic's heart in her head, the warmth of her conflicted body over her own form. Her scent washes all around her despite the water that pounds down around them, dripping streams from her drenched hair, warm hands to counteract the cold. When the priestess smiles, Brittany's eyes narrow in thought.

"Santana?" Her gaze goes soft and she raises an eyebrow, stroking a tendril of wet hair from her neck.

"No, not entirely. I am here but for a moment, Bretagne."

Flawless Norse. Brittany's true name rolls like quicksilver off her (Santana's?) tongue, but she finds herself liking Santana's own moniker more.

"But... if Santana has gone... who are you?" She tries to sit up in alarm. "She is coming back, yes? I can see her again? What have you done with her?"

A tinkering laugh like blowing chimes - a sudden exhaustion goes through her and she slumps back into Not-Santana's lap. "She will return, child. I am simply here to ease your pain."

She huffs, blowing a stream of air from her parted lips. It's touching, that Santana cares so much for her well-being - but she is not some delicate flower waiting to be crushed. In all honesty, it seems to be the opposite way around. "Not that I try to be ungrateful, but what are you doing here? She has no need to be worried."

A wry smile. "Ah, but she does worry. You are very dear to her, my child."

Brittany blinks and a flush of heat rolls through her body. Not-Santana notices, and her smile lifts Santana's lips up into a grin. "I-I am?"

"But of course. Have you not realized? She treats others with contempt and distrust, but not you. You must be special to bring that out in her, Bretagne."

When Brittany reluctantly brings her eyes upwards to meet the gentle face, she gasps. The dark eyes in front of her have bloomed into celestial blue, swirling and devouring any other colour. Faint outlines of the inner workings shimmer and twist underneath what looks to be a thick coat of mist, floating from the sockets in clouds to disappear into the murky morning. There's only one place she's ever seen this before.

"G-Goddess?"

A radiant grin comes forth, eerie but still soothing when paired with the glow. "Indeed. Well done, Bretagne."

One hand hesitantly reaches upwards and Ataecina allows Brittany to trace the lines of her jawbone with careful fingers, the flesh underneath her touch pulsing with life. Everything about here seems... not better, but different. Fuller, wiser. Her thumbs swipe gently under the hollows of Not-Santana's eyelids - the whole time, they never break their stare. The Goddess is patient with all her children, and grants Brittany this seemingly trivial victory.

(It has been the first time she has truly touched Santana's body in this way, but little does she know it will never be the last.)

"We fight so much, Mother." The name is strange and bulky on her tongue, foreign, but how Ataecina's eyes light further is more than worth the momentary discomfort. "She jumps and refuses to concentrate. I try to touch her, and she throws me into the nearest wall... as if she wishes to be out of my presence. I-if I go for my weapon, it seems as if the world is falling." Brittany's face drops. "Is that it, Mother? Does she not like me since she saw what I did to the troll? It was for her benefit, truly, I was only protecting her-"

A thumb run along the contours of her jaw stutters her into silence. Ataecina shakes her head slowly, deliberating. Santana must be the one to fix things, but nothing can be done with miscommunication. "She understands, as do I." She hesitates, but the desperate blue staring back at her prompts her tongue to loosen. "Things are changing for her, Bretagne... here," she touches her fingertips to Brittany's forehead, "as well as here." It then goes down to her heart, applying the lightest pressure. "You must be patient with her. Santana is stubborn and refuses to face her troubles. The strength within her, the white that burns all it touches; it scares her, makes her paranoid. That is what is changing her thoughts and her feelings towards you, not your perceived faults."

Brittany bites her lip and nuzzles into the Mother's lap. "Will it always be like this?"

A hand on her head, stroking. "No, my child. She needs you too much. Be by her side - this is the best comfort you can give. She will show her gratitude... eventually."

Ataecina makes to get up, the glow of her eyes dulling, but Brittany clings with a pout. "Can we stay like this? Just for a little while?" It's been so long since Santana's touch has been giving, that her words please more than they hurt. She yearns to feel it again.

"Of course."

They lay there, half-encased by sodden muck. The Goddess strokes her hair in a mesmerizing pattern as she curls further into her embrace, the beat of Ataecina's heart anchoring her down like the swell of the sea. Her eyes flutter shut slowly.

Little does she know that celestial blue has returned to dark brown. Santana's fingers stutter momentarily in Brittany's hair as she looks around in confusion, taking in the mud that seeps in through her robes and the filthy figure sprawled in her lap. Brittany is peaceful in her contentment, lips slightly parted and clothes in disarray. Santana shivers slightly and once again flips the hood over her head, fallen off in the panic.

Every touch of their skin sends little crawling shocks over her body; she is the cloud that absorbs Brittany's lightning, swelling with its girth, crackling and humming and seething with life. The lingering of her Mother's presence remains within her chest, stilling the tremble of her fingers but letting herself open up just enough to bask in the quiet that has overtaken them. With the rhythmic pounding of the rain against her shoulders, Santana finds herself oddly peaceful.

_Do not fear, my child. She has no pain to give._

Santana sucks her worried bottom lip between her teeth. For as long as she's lived she's always tried so very hard to heed her call and her coming, no matter how wrong it felt at the time, for She always led her right in the end of things. Why would she start doubting now? Her mind whispers one thing - caught between two warring factions, clashing for control of her thoughts - and her heart another - saying _trust me_ while still screaming _run_ - but her Goddess knows all that goes on in the world.

"Santana?" Her eyes drift down to sleepy blue peering upwards, a cold, pink nose snuffling out water.

"Hello, Brittany." She murmurs quietly, careful not to break herself out of her trance. "Tired?"

A lazy smile - Santana's breath hitches when Brittany turns over and buries her face into her robes. "Mhm..."

Two dark hands gingerly worm their way underneath her matted locks and lift up with a nervous, yet amused, smile. "No... see Eyja. Rocks."

Brittany props herself up with one arm, grimacing as her elbows sinks itself down into the sodden ground. "Rocks?" She follows Santana's finger to a small basket sitting a little ways away, laden with countless flat stones. "Rumusteinn?"

Santana shrugs. "Know not. Go... go now?"

Brittany sighs - it was too good to last. Already she sees the telltale tremor in Santana's fingers and the guarded shroud around her eyes. Ataecina's visit allowed her a moment of rest from herself, but she must forge her own path alone. "Yes, we go now."

Carefully they stumble to their feet, slick and dripping mud. When Santana stumbles a fraction, Brittany puts out her hand to steady her.

She is delighted when she isn't thrust away.

* * *

><p>Eyja is a little mouse of a woman, with hair as strong as Betar's and eyes far too wide. She reminds Santana of the colts she had to deliver in Botaya, flailing and helpless as they take their first few terrified steps into a world that might not want them. She kind of makes her uncomfortable with her inquisitive staring and her need to flit about like a fae-child.<p>

"Santana!" She says in that way where it's almost always like she's both excited and surprised to see her, a welcome disruption in her pristine schedule that _never_ works out, for in a viking village there are always exceptions. "You have _rumusteinn?_" Santana holds out the basket but scrunches her nose in confusion.

"Stones." She clarifies with an inflection that makes it sound more like a question. "Only stones."

Eyja peers into the container. "No,_ rumusteinn._"

This conversation is getting nowhere. Santana huffs in irritation and shakes the basket; its rustle startles the smaller woman and brings a smirk to dark lips. "Where _rumusteinn?_" She asks with an exasperated eye roll, shuffling them around exaggeratedly. "No... no _rumu_, only stone!"

It is then she feels a delicate prod on the peripherals of her mind, a touch with just enough pressure to feel it. Wildflowers bloom in her mouth, sickly sweet. The presence embeds within her a sudden wish to pick up one of the rocks, to feel it in her hand, to trace the smooth surface and let the fact that it has no engravings not deter her from-

Her eyes snap up and meet with Eyja's furrowed brow, drawn in concentration. She tries to fight, shoving back with her own short temper that leaves a taste of sage and smoke, letting the strange energy run through her and strengthen her resolve. Their wills battle - Santana's anger momentarily overpowers Eyja's persistence - and she ends up smirking in satisfaction when the presence recedes under her ire. Santana is always one to gloat in her victories - she doesn't realize her hand has already curled into the basket until she holds a smooth, oval-shaped object in her fist. She stares at it for a moment before slowly raising her eyes to her mentor's sheepish expression.

She _hates_ it when that happens. It's only made worse by the echo in her head that whispers _you refused to listen, so I did it myself._

"Well?" Santana grumbles in her own tongue, eyes flashing in irritation. "You decided to play with my mind so I would take one of these useless things, now what am I supposed to do with it? There isn't exactly a clear sign."

Her hand moves as if guided by an invisible force, straying to the small knife her mother had left her with. She watches her fingers move with barely a push from her own thoughts, toying with the handle until it unsheathes itself with a quiet _shhhish. _It was sharper than it had ever intended to be - Brittany had seen it one night and refused to leave her alone until it was handed over, blade nicked and blunt, only to be returned razor-fine and polished to a gleam. Still, it's anything other than impressive.

Santana's white river stirs with unease. It refuses to be manipulated by anything other than its own master; her palms tingle and her jaws ache as a cloud is pulled over her eyes and everything slows down to a crawl.

As the tip lays itself upon the surface, Eyja rustles around in her bag for a moment before coming up with the same stone that she had given Santana earlier in the morn. It pulses gently under her touch - even in the bright room she sees the air around it shimmer.

"Róa." She says, tracing the rune. Santana's arm moves in sync with hers, the point of her blade ghosting through the symbols.

The energy inside her is throwing itself at the walls of its prison, river raging into a rapid, protesting this new development. A burn starts itself in the center of her skull where she can't reach, eyes squinting in focus, clamping them shut when her knife bites down upon the stone for the first time. She misses Eyja's apologetic glance and the briefest flash of white in her gaze as her own power presses Santana's hand down further.

It scrapes with sure strokes, cutting into the surface with jagged lines; the sound grates endlessly at her ears. Santana is wound taut like a misshapen spring, skin pricking, ribs aching, breath coming in noisy inhales as Eyja's presence blankets her further and the final flourish is finished with her knife.

All at once she can breath as her mentor's essence retracts from her brain; everything is sharper and she groans, clutching her temple with one hand while the other drops the weapon with a clatter. The taste in her mouth is almost overpowering; the scent of flowers is everywhere, in her nose and under her nails and across her palate. She gags once and Eyja rushes to her aid, murmuring frantic apologies as she presses her own stone against Santana's skin and willing its strength to rush through her frightened veins.

(Santana understands why magic is such a potent weapon. Even with favourable intent, another mystic breaking into her mind makes her feel powerless and violated. Less than human. A dog waiting on its master.)

Eventually the panic pulls back but she can't stop the churning in her stomach and the way her palms light up faintly, slamming this way and that through her body. She is sometimes naught but a vessel for this dragon in her belly, and she quickly grows tired of it. "What?" She asks Eyja, shaking her uncompleted rune held in her fist. The older woman perks up noticeably and nods to herself, shuffling through some copperware before returning with a vial of thick, dark liquid.

Santana raises it to her face and sniffs, wrinkling her nose at its foul scent. The container is warm under her fingers.

"Bjorn." Eyja replies, pointing to a stretched pelt of a mighty bear that hangs with its mouth gaping open into a snarl.

Bear's blood.

She tips some and rubs it carefully into the marks, making sure to fill in all the crevices. The room is soon filled with its drowning scent, iron and salt and memories of a day in the forest - Brittany reared up against the sun with an unreadable expression on her face, crouched over a flailing corpse as her axe flashed down again and again until chunks of flesh were flying, spraying out in all directions, and the meaty thump was like a drumbeat as loud as her heart-

"Santana?"

The younger girl startles and stares at her coated stone gripped so hard in her hand she fears she will break it. Eyja worries; the crease in her brow is obvious, but Santana shakes away her memories and gives her a tiny nod.

"Now..." the older woman cups her hand and in it forms a wisp of blue, swirling gently above her skin. Even its simply sight is soothing and Santana sighs as she allows herself reprieve, shoving aside the angry power and instead letting the blue stream pool deep in her abdomen and fill right to the tip of her fingers. A wave of temporary stability rushes through her and it flows into the rock - before her very eyes the runes change from red to beautiful blue, glowing soft but sure. She holds it a moment longer before murmuring her thanks and letting Ataecina's power retreat. Even as it fades, the calm remains within her grasp.

Her thumb runs curiously over the runestone as she glances towards Eyja. She smiles serenely and nods her head as if congratulating her for a job well done. An echo sounds in her head without words but a language all the same.

_Until you can control yourself, it will aid you._

She slips it into the pouch upon her belt. Santana flexes her fingers in anticipation and sucks in a great lungful of air, almost shouting for joy when the white power does not seek to crawl up her throat and overwhelm her thoughts. It burbles tamely beside blue instead, lifting her up but not sending her over the edge.

"Thank you." Her first genuine smile in Eyja's direction - it is returned with force and she is ushered from the room.

(She runs outside into the wet, seeking the one person who can fully appreciate this change.)

* * *

><p>"Brittany!" It floats across the road and a head of damp blonde hair lifts, eyes inquisitively scanning the crowds of weary commoners. Her arms ache and her foot is unusually tight but she still runs on a high of seeing the Goddess for the very first time, her soothing touch and careful words woven into her flesh like invisible tattoos. They shiver within her as the call comes again, louder this time, until she winds up with an armful of fresh robes.<p>

Brittany grunts and forces herself back a step, dark hair tickling her nose - she instantly recognizes the scent and laughs, spinning Santana around and delighting in the chuckle she hears in return. Her body seems lighter than it did a moment ago, unwinding herself from the surprise embrace.

Santana is babbling. It's a trait when excited or nervous, and it simply pours out of her like a river made of silk, hissing and slipping crystal fine and glacier smooth until she could take the strands of her thoughts and wrap Brittany in them like a spider's nest. Brittany tries to gain any sense of her emotions, grinning when her hands come up to flail around in the air, hair whipping about excitedly. The people around them are starting to stare but for the first time in a week, Santana doesn't seem to mind.

Eventually she rummages around in her pocket and comes up with a glowing stone, the colour of Brittany's eyes in the summer sun. "Rumusteinn!" Santana calls, tongue tripping over a syllable or two. It is the symbols for _róa _carved into the grey rock. Fitting; calm was the thing lacking from her life.

Splashed upon the stone are long rivulets of red.

Sensing her companion's worry before she can voice it, Santana simply grins. "Bear," she explains, tapping against the dried streams of blood. Everything in Brittany loosens considerably, allowing her stolen smile to return.

Brittany takes her palms and never breaks gazes with her - she notes how Santana shivers but does not recoil - and turns her palms around, grimacing at the darkening flesh, still seared from the morning's troubles, rings and scars thickening her hands. It's a wonder she can still feel with them. "No white?" asks the viking, alluding to the power that often dances between her fingers when alarmed.

This brings a true smile to Santana's face. Her _sólarljós-bros_ that Brittany wants to plug into a bottle and hoard all for herself. "No white!" She responds happily. "Here." One finger taps to her sternum, but she doesn't seem worried. "Fine now."

She tries not to shift away when Brittany pauses and watches her intently, more careful than she's ever been, weighing the truth of her statement against her own doubts. One pale hand raises cautiously and her thumb runs up the bridge of Santana's nose, stopping gingerly just before her mark. They both wait with bated breath as Brittany deliberates on something - her oceanic eyes flick back and forth between her own as if scrounging for a feeling that remains to be seen - before pressing the pad of her thumb to the center of her forehead.

Where she touches, Santana burns.

A good burn, one that slowly fills her up from toes to eyelashes, pulsating through her veins like a drum. Brittany sucks in a surprised breath and they are connected so intimately Santana can close her eyes and pick out the individual inhales of her companion's lungs, the gurgle of her blood that gives life to those limbs. Everything she is travels through that one link and fills her up with light so sweet it swells her throat with something that aren't quite tears. Brittany's other hand cups her jaw, feather-light, and simply breathes until the rise of their chests have fallen into time.

"_Priestess..."_ It comes from underwater, easily ignored; Santana's eyes fall shut and she inhales what must be Brittany's air, fanning across her face in a pleasant way that hurt earlier this morning. _Why did I fight this?_ They shift and Brittany's forehead is now pressing to her own, deepening this _thing_ passing in between them. Her own hands go to Brittany's waist, desperate for more, wanting and wishing until she is swept away with the tide. "Santana..." Her voice, laden with awe, sounds like a prayer. Or perhaps a miracle.

A tug on her sleeve. "_Priestess!"_ It becomes difficult to ignore - the pattern of her companion's breathing is interrupted, staccato streams that rouse her from her dream. As they separate they are well aware of the eyes that watch them ever so curiously, frozen in the middle of the street in an intimate embrace. Santana licks her dry lips once, twice; nerves creep back into her mind and she drops Brittany's waist as if bitten.

Immediately, she yearns for her warmth.

"What?" She asks to the small, scowling boy with his constant mop of blond hair. He is trying to drill axes into the taller girls' skull; Brittany, for her part, runs one large hand over her face in confusion, trying to bring her wits back to her. Mild delirium can be seen swirling in her glassy eyes.

"Betar says come." He mutters, tugging impatiently at one of her hands. "A undarlegt maður er hér."

Brittany's gaze sharpens with startling speed. "What man?" The change into her viking voice is so jarring that Santana does nothing but blink slowly in her direction. Sometimes she forgets the weight Brittany carries over her shoulders.

The small boy huffs, shaking bangs from his face. "Hann er einhvers konar seið-mann ... Betar vill hana til að horfa á."

"_Seið-mann?_" Santana interrupts, brow furrowing. "May somebody be so kind as to tell me what seems to be the issue?"

"Seiðr... bad magic." Brittany makes motions with her hands that make no sense to anybody but herself. "Dark. Bad dark."

_Beware the unnatural dark, Santana._

A chill creeps into her warmth, biting at the edges of her jaw and the corners of her mind. She remembers a wanderer one night, come into Botaya with a staggering gait and an exhausted horse. His skin was pulled taut over his bones and his fingers were worn, flesh cracked, the colour dulled to a strange grey. Though he looked ancient he told her Mami he was only fourty winters - she recoiled at his snowy white hair and the tormented age in his eyes.

_Betrayer! _Mami had hissed, her staff striking upon the ground. He flinched at the ripple of light; twelve year old Santana cowered behind the High Priestess as the shadows around him seemed to writhe. _I have no business with you! Take your foul magic elsewhere, away from my home._

_Priestess..._

_ You lost the right to address me when you turned from the Goddess, boy. Leave, or I will forcefully move you. And I promise I will not be as lenient as I have been._

She watched the broken man go, stumbling over himself - with him, a veil of darkness was lifted, and the pressure on her chest eased. Mami had knelt down to the trembling girl and ran her hands over her arms. _Never associate with men like that, Santana. Promise me._

_But why? He was in pain. I thought our job was to heal. _

_ Not him. He is beyond healing, and does not deserve our comfort. Now promise me!_

_ I-I promise, Mami._

"Santana?" Brittany watches with concern as she rouses herself from whatever crevice she had encased herself, grinding the heel of her palm into one of her eyes. Sometimes she worries that Santana will push herself so deep into her own mind that she becomes trapped, unable to get out of her body that becomes a prison. In their fleeting union she had glimpsed into her mind - a conflicted, battered place, punctuated by silky sentences of her own language, the constant comfort of the Goddess and the shaking uncertainty of her new-found prowess. It had swept her up and thrown her away, left her clinging to the little pieces of light that she could find, fighting against Santana's own self-doubt and constant oppression. Her frustrations nearly drowned her, but the thump of her heart lifted her back up to bursting.

When she turns, Brittany offers her a tentative smile and her hand. "Come?"

Her hesitation is palpable, nervously flickering further into town where the strange wanderer lies, obviously fighting with something Brittany has no ability to soothe. After a prolonged pause where so many expressions flitted about she was unable to count them, she nods and threads her smallest finger into hers. In the end, it is enough.

They travel through the crowds with ease. Brittany ducks and weaves with the grace of someone who has been doing this for years - the boy himself isn't large enough to be a target of concern. The closer they inch, the more Santana stiffens, until Brittany almost has to carry her along and into her father's house.

For somebody without magical intent, the shift in the atmosphere is not obvious - a chill in the air, the vague scent of something bitter, darkening of the room. For Santana, it's almost as if somebody is beating her over the head with an icicle.

Standing in the center of the room is a man. He has his own staff - wood blackened with dye, the original tree indistinguishable - and stygian robes, something that is blinding against his snowy skin and golden hair. His posture is relaxed, almost bored, but it is his eyes that alert Brittany; as cold as icebergs and of similar colour. They are as sharp as her spear and travel around the room constantly, lingering in pockets of shadow before continuing on. The lines of his skin betray his age, but his keen intellect and towering stature (taller than her, that's odd) show that it means nothing in the scheme of things.

"Bretagne!" exclaims Betar with contentment, beckoning the girl forward. She moves, pulling Santana with her, going the long way around but not moving into the shadows.

Something's already wrong. She's trembling like she holds the weight of the world.

"This is Styrr, of... where did you say you come?"

"I was born in Tanmaurk what seems like eons ago, but I have travelled from below, in the midst of the Franks, who have called me Sue. It seems their tongues are poisoned with lead as a child." His voice is dry and cutting, almost mocking.

"That is a long way to travel, Styrr of Tanmaurk. What brings you to Kaupang?"

He sweeps his staff to one side - the various baubles clink together and ruffle his robes, but his face remains indifferent. Above him, Brittany notes with a frown that the sunlight seems to flicker and almost die out, averting to the sides to leave him in darkness. Her little finger begins to lose circulation from how hard Santana is squeezing, but she tries to communicate comfort in any way that she can. It seems only her skin and the rune nestled safely in her pocket keeps Santana from going into a spiral.

"I have moved far and seen much in my days, but come with a warning." Styrr's eyes are grave, calculating. "The Christians that worship one God are beginning to forge their way here, into the depths of the North. They have already taken many countries and there are whispers that Normandy comes with a great army and a fearless leader to take us by force if we do not bow to their will."

"Normandy? They are small and of us, surely they have no need to wage war against their brethren."

Styrr snorts - a condescending, harsh sound. "Have you not heard? Hrólfr has entered into service in exchange for land and power. They have neutered him, _owned _him. He has trusted the crusade of his homelands to his general and brother, Harald, whom has never once lost a battle and is loathe to start now. Right at this moment he trains Hrólfr's son, William Longsword, to be an even greater leader than he. The boy is but fourteen winters and even now shows great potential. "

Betar leans back in his face, usually flushed skin now pale with worry. Brittany's hand carefully goes to cover his massive one in reassurance, but her thoughts are no better. What chance have they against an army like the Normands? Northvegia has no massing force, nor does Tanmaurk or Sviar. They will do what they please with this country, no matter how hard the vikings fight to stop it. But... the thought of _converting_ to save her skin disgusts her. Traitors and cowards, every last one of them. Brittany would rather die than hide forever.

"You obviously want something," states Betar, eyeing the stranger, "state your price and perhaps we will come to an agreement."

"I simply want shelter and protection." The man's shoulders rise into a shrug, but it seems too innocent. "I am a _spae-worker_, yes, but I am a strong one. I can watch the armies, tell you their movements, advise you where to place your hand. It would be wise to try and keep yourself entirely out of this battle, in order to preserve numbers. There is little thought that you will be slaughtered if you offer resistance."

"That is all? A home and nourishment?"

"Truly. That is all I require."

Her father teeters, looking him up and down, weighing his options. A creeping dread pulls into Brittany's chest but she turns instead to Santana, who has lost her usual dark pallor. Her eyes are riveted just beyond Styrr's shoulder, into the shadows that are too thick for even such a dull afternoon. There is something _wrong_ about this man; everything about him screams unnatural, an alarm... but to what? She can't pinpoint it, slipping out of her fingers every time she tries to touch, just like oil.

Or blood.

"Very well. You have my consent."

Styrr smiles - and the shadows shift along with his movements.

In their depths, Santana spots the glimmer of hidden eyes.

"No!" Her cry rouses the guards and they look about wildly in an attempt to spot the source of her frenzy. Betar jolts in his seat, Brittany jumps by her side, and Sandalio - previously unseen - gives a yip of panic. Styrr remains impassive.

"What _are_ you?" Santana whispers in Spanish, eyes still riveted beyond them.

_Beware the unnatural dark, Santana._

_ The unnatural dark._

_ Dark._

"Ah, you can see them?" To her mounting surprise he answers her in her own tongue, a smirk crawling up over his lips at her unease. "You are stronger than I initially thought, priestess. It is rare that somebody so young can detect it, let alone identify."

Her jaw clenches. "You left my question unanswered."

"I did... how very rude of me. I am mortal, girl, as are you. I have simply... another Master, who chooses to manifest itself in different ways."

A wet, sucking sound. The mass of darkness shifts again and from it spits forth tendrils of pulsating matter, crawling momentarily along the walls. Santana recoils in horror, but it is gone as soon as it came. "Ataecina is not my Mistress... I am her willing follower, not her _slave_."

"One of the Mother? It has been many years since I last came in contact with her. Tell me... did she tell you of the massacres in Iberia? How your kinsmen drag themselves through the dust in an effort to escape the wretched Christians and their swords? Your cities fall into ruin under their siege, and many turn away from their faith and embrace the invisible deity in an effort to spare themselves from that pain." His grin flashes, bright in the surrounding obscurity. "Has she given you the ability to destroy that oppression?"

Santana shakes her head to rid herself of his cloying presence. "Enough of your mind games! I do not know what you want, but you will _not_ find it here! Take your black magic and your... your _seiðr _and leave. I will not let you harm them."

Unbeknownst to her, her palms have started to heat, her fury fuelling her strength into a much more visible result. One of his fair eyebrows raise, but he does not make to move.

"You will have to do better than that, priestess. My power far surpasses yours, and I have been given sanctum by the girl-warrior's father. You will find they do not take kindly to a magic wielding woman attacking those who seem harmless."

"I will stop you, trust my word."

A sardonic smile. "Oh, little one... who said I wanted to do anything to _them?_" His stare pierces right through her, and she knows.

Unable to hold her ground, Santana shakes under the weight of his shadow but flees regardless, her feet carrying her from the room with godly speed. A shout from behind her alerts her to the fact that another is chasing her, but they seem to be keeping time rather than gaining. Together they flee through the towns where the people mutter as they watch them tear recklessly through the streets, Santana's staff hoisted in her grip as she runs. Her own impotency brings to her hot, stinging tears that roll down her cheeks before she uses her sleeves and the wind to wipe them away.

_Goddess, the way he looked at me. Like he wanted to... give me something._

Whatever pinprick of curiosity given is shoved down and smothered. That weakness will only end in heartbreak.

She stumbles to a stop on the docks, gasping for air, doubled over and glistening with sweat. Her staff clatters to the ground with a muted thud as she squeezes her eyes shut, forcing closed the vortex in her mind that Styrr's presence has opened. _Was he telling the truth about Iberia? Who is his master? Mother, why didn't you warn me?_

A hand on her shoulder interrupts her torment. She knows those lithe fingers anywhere, scarred from countless battles, the nails bitten down and raw. Santana slowly straightens and turns around, unable to meet Brittany's sympathetic eyes. "Sorry..." she whispers (and it's for so many things done and yet to be that it overwhelms her).

A moment later long arms are around her, and for once she allows herself to be swept away in a tide of leather, sweat and peppermint.

(The scent of home.)

* * *

><p><strong>Translations!<strong>

** Hér eru steinar þín: Here are your stones**

** Þú þarft að vera nákvæm: You have to be accurate**

** sólarljós-bros: sun smile**

** A undarlegt maður er hér: A strange man is here**

** Hann er einhvers konar seið-mann ... Betar vill hana til að horfa á: He is a seid-mann, Betar wants her to watch**

** Tanmaurk and Sviar: Denmark and Sweden**


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: So a huge thank you to all my reviewers who liked my last chapter - it's so good that you guys think so highly of the story! I'm actually editing when I'm supposed to be writing a big project for my final week in school, so you better be grateful! It's a bit shorter than usual, but I think you'll like where it's gone. The first part, anyway.

As usual, an endless kudos to my beta **LeMasquerade**. Thank you so much for responding to my project with post-haste no matter what crap you have going on yourself. Without further ado, enjoy!

* * *

><p>Chapter 9<p>

**oh, how I long for the deep sleep dreaming**

**the Goddess of imaginary light**

**July 22nd, 912**

_It waits. _

_ For eons it has remained in its prison, twisting in and out on itself, an endless void to fill its yearning hunger. It has grown patient and wise, cunning beyond thought, a voice so strong to make up for the body that it so desperately lacks. _

_ In its mind's eye that stretches further than this world, it sees its Prophet, pulsating with blessed darkness and so very tall amongst the nothing. They are mere shadows of his strength. It feeds his hunger and in return gains a loyal servant that will defy death if it so desires. Over many years their bond has thickened, stretched, discarded the laws of life and matter until the Prophet, with his blinding eyes and whispering tongue, will be its mouthpiece unto a world that has forgotten its touch._

_ But there is another. _

_ The One is covered in the Mother's stench, vibrating around her, masking its efforts. But her light and her fragile little heart sing so sweetly. It wants nothing more than to taste, to taint and corrupt and use until she is but a shell to its glory. Together, she would die and be reborn as something else entirely._

_ The two would become One as is foretold, and together they would be Whole. _

_ Its darkness rides in the hollows of the Prophet's words when they can reach her ears, but it is in dream that its temptation can come to fruition. She is here, screaming silently in the dark, blind with terror and a heart that exhausts itself in its fear. It brushes against her taut thighs and trembles with anticipation as she jerks away, scrambling back into the shadow until it is all she can feel._

_**What are you? **__She howls into the void, and it tastes the inside of her mouth, hot and bitter._

_ It does not have long. The Warrior will come as she always does and whisk her away. _

_ One ephemeral hand bursts forth from above, grasping the girl on her upper arm. Where the ghost-like form touches, the darkness is burned away. _

_**Everything you wish me to be.**_

_ She shudders and another hand comes up, scarred and smooth, to haul her from the depths._

_**Soon, priestess.**__Its whisper sounds across the blackness and drills themselves into the Prophet's mind. Even in his sleep, he smiles at his Master's call. __**My temptation cannot be resisted forever.**_

_It waits._

* * *

><p>"Santana, wake up!" She bursts from her nightmare as if breaking the surface of the ocean, gasping for air and drenched in sweat. In the silence of the room her sucking breaths are deafening, rattling forth from her chest and bouncing along the walls. In the flame from a single lantern hung off her bed, Brittany's eyes gleam with unrestrained worry.<p>

It is the same almost every night. She will wake to see the priestess contorted into almost inhuman angles, struggling to get away from something that only she can see. Every night she will pass a rag gingerly over her skin in an effort to blot away the cold perspiration that has seeped its way through her sleep-garb. Every night she will swallow back the scream of alarm when Santana's eyes snap open with no color but the endless dark.

"Good?" Brittany asks softly, hovering over her, pressing the fabric to her forehead in an attempt to wipe away the worst of her sweat. She gets hardly more than five hours sleep at one time, but she worries more for Santana, who seems haunted even in the waking hours.

Santana allows herself a moment of weakness and lets her cheek curve into Brittany's palm, the knot of her brows betraying her. "It... it worse, Brittany." She mumbles tiredly, eyes opening - once again back to their normal brown. "Strong. It speaks."

That is new and entirely unsettling.

"What does it say?" She asks, perching herself upon the lip of Santana's bed. Her friend shrugs and curls herself awkwardly into a ball, burrowing one side of her face into the pillow. With no sure way of communication, Brittany's only insight into her torment have been through fractured sentences and stilted, short words that don't give away as much as they'd both like.

On her bedside, the runestone glows. After learning that Santana couldn't go a night without its presence, they made sure it was a constant presence wherever she would roam. Brittany still remembers the screaming.

Santana reaches out and plays with the stone, brushing her thumb over the engravings, finally allowing Brittany's presence and the return of her wits to unwind her muscles. She is still sticky, with her clothes clinging wetly to her back, but she can no longer feel the sweat - slimy to the touch - beading its way along her skin. "Bad things," she whispers hoarsely, "evil things. _Tentaciones._" Santana closes her eyes and allows the Mother's presence to flush out the fear and replace it with strength, to erase its words that seem almost a part of her now. She remembers being blind and helpless in the shadow, flinching back from an enemy against whom she cannot retaliate. Brittany notices the dull glow gathered in the middle of her brow and sighs in sympathy.

"Come, Santana," she says lowly, shuffling to the back of the room near her bed, "you must change clothes if you want to stay well. Keeping those on will only make it worse."

Brittany has begun speaking to Santana with everything that she has in long, rambling sentences, watching how the priestess nods along and concentrates intensely on each and every word. Though she doubts Santana understands half of what she weaves, it makes her feel heard and cared for. Certainly it's a welcome change.

Her hands flail in the darkness until she stumbles clumsily to her dresser, tracing its outlines with her lithe hands. For a semblance of comfort she had left the lamp by Santana's bedside and catches nothing but the weakest glow from the flame, fingers skipping along the wood to find the notches, curling and tugging it open gently. Before she reaches inwards, something brushes against her leg, unseen in the darkness. She squeals in alarm and instantly Santana's hands burst into light.

Sandalio wags up at her, tongue lolling from his mouth and head cocked in uncertainty. Brittany releases a breath in a massive rush of air. "You scared me." She mutters, stretching down to scratch behind his ear. His tail thumps as loudly as her heart.

Brittany fishes out a simple white tunic and her favourite pair of threadbare linen breeches before trotting back over to Santana. She looks exhausted in this light: dark rings circling her eyes, her skin sallow. Her forehead still glows, but now that her fear has declined it is dull, weak.

These dreams aresapping the life out of her. Brittany loathes to think what will happen when she is too tired to resist.

"Up," she murmurs, nudging at her arms. Santana slowly raises them but pulls them down again when Brittany starts to tug her shift upwards from her legs. "Santana?"

"What you do?" She asks warily, shuffling backwards.

"Doing." Brittany corrects automatically, but shakes her head. "You are tired, Santana. I can help you." A pause. "_Let_ me help you."

A pregnant silence follows, where brown eyes sweep nervously over every inch of Brittany's concerned, open expression. Just the thought of those hands on her makes her shiver in the strangest ways - she could believe it was the cold if not for the fact her skin burns. Her body has always been her own, noone but her mother has ever seen her in any state of undress.

But she's so _tired._

"Fine," she mutters, hesitantly lifting her arms again. "Fine. Hurry." Brittany almost lights up, the glow of her smile visible in the dark as she carefully shifts the thin robe over Santana's form. As more and more caramel skin is revealed to her, inch by torturous inch, she finds her hands have begun to shake.

Toned calves, slim thighs. The crevice of her leg and hip, scrunched and hidden in shadow from where she has pressed her limbs tightly together. Brittnay gulps as the barest hints of curly hair shift out from the gloom; fingers graze over narrow hips and skin much smoother than her own. (She is filled with scars and maps, a constant work in progress, but Santana is as blank as a newly woven canvas. Her touch ripples across her body in waves - in her wake she leaves trails and mountains of raised flesh that fill her with an unspeakable sense of pride.) Brittany forces her eyes up and stalls with surprise as she meets Santana's nervous gaze, flicking rapidly between her own, almost looking for faults. Filled with a sense of purpose, she smiles tenderly and continues her journey.

Each of her knuckles drag gently over Santana's ribs and she taps out a simple beat on the bones, delighting on the airy giggle that shakes forth from her chest. Here she can feel every inhale of her friend, every movement. Her muscles are lean and sinewy under her probing touch - Brittany's right hand covers the skin just under Santana's left breast, feeling the rapid flutter of her heartbeat.

"Breathe, Santana." Brittany says, leaning forward ever so slightly. They have not tested their connection ever since the sacred moment in the streets, but as her forehead connects with Santana's, there is a rushing anxiety that chills her down to the bone and a heat that scorches her skin. She sucks in a sharp breath as the flesh between her thighs starts to throb with unprecedented vigor, stirring a similar gasp out of Santana.

_Calm down. _Neither of them know who spoke it, but it rings through their minds regardless. The frenzy of Santana's heartbeat stills slowly under her hand. Eventually the ache between her legs fades, to be replaced with a dull warmth and a tenseness in her belly. "Good?" Brittany whispers into the silence, waiting for Santana's seal of approval. She senses more than sees the flicker of appreciation from her concern and the small nod it accompanies.

Her hands continue their journey upwards, pushing over her breasts and to her collarbone. The taller girl can't help herself as her eyes flicker downwards and widen in awe. They're simply so different than anything she's seen - her own are small from constant exercise and her long frame - with dusky nipples drawn tight and the swell of dark skin tantalizing. Without realizing it the back of her hand slides itself over the side of Santana's breast, causing a muffled whimper to escape her. Brittany is so tempted to touch, but pulls back her desire. Santana already seems nervous enough without forbidden and wandering hands making matters worse.

With a gentle word her arms go up, and Brittany lifts the slip the rest of the way over her head. Dark hair scatters itself all over slender shoulders as Santana leans back, crossing her arms defensively over her chest and biting at her lip. Even in the dark, a faint blush can be seen upon her coloured skin, dusting her cheeks.

The Norse are not a shy people. Brittany cannot understand why Santana is so conscious of her body, especially one so soft and smooth. She is a loom laden with silky fabrics and Brittany is her weaver, long fingers circling fragile wrists and gently tugging away. "Do not be afraid," she says, retrieving her shirt and readying it in her hands, "you will not be judged by me." The article slips over her head, the contrast striking against her skin. "I believe you are beautiful, Santana." She says with a smile, completely missing the flustered expression on her companion's face. "If you hide that, it is hard to be happy. Be proud of yourself."

"Up," she urges, while Santana is still at loss for what to say. Clumsily, she rises to her feet, allowing Brittany to thread her legs through the holes of her pants and pull them up her limbs. With a searing red blush she realizes she is level with Santana's hips and what lies hidden underneath a light dusting of curls, but she steadfastly avoids such thoughts and instead pulls the drawstring taut around her small hips, fingers accidentally brushing over the curve of Santana's buttocks as she goes. She pauses at the strange noise that comes from Santana, but a hesitant hand that buries itself in her messy, sleep-ridden locks urges her to finish her work. With a simple knot tied into the strings she rises again, attempting to avert her eyes, but a hand lays itself on her burning cheek.

"Thank you." Santana says simply with a small smile, bringing herself up on her toes so she can press her lips to the same place her palm once was. Brittany's face flames up again and her knees suddenly seem to lose all stability.

Santana gingerly climbs back into bed and she looks so adorable in Brittany's overflowing clothes that she can't resist a snicker from bubbling up her throat and slipping past her teeth. Santana tries to look affronted for all of two seconds before she dissolves into chuckles too. The strange, tense atmosphere is broken. "Go sleep, Brittany." She mumbles, cocooning herself in the dried sheets. "Late. Tired." Soon enough, all she sees poking out from the blankets is a tangled head of dark hair.

Brittany picks her way through the room and slides back into her own bed, curling loosely into herself and trying to still her racing mind. What was that? Her whole body was so responsive to Santana's every movement that it felt like they were continuously joined at the mind, not simply in that one moment of unity. And that jolt... she's never felt anything like it. Brittany frowns and snakes her hand into her thin leggings, palming her throbbing flesh and almost jerking back at the slick warmth that meets her.

Is she sick?

If this is sickness, she wouldn't mind being ill for a while. The tips of her digits slide carefully through the strange wetness, deliberating, biting down hard on her tongue to stifle strange noises she feels brewing in her throat. One finger fleetingly runs over a large bump protruding from the top of her folds and her whole body jerks forward - she presses her face hard into the crook of her elbow to drown out her low whimper as every nerve in her body prickles. Frightened, she withdraws her hand as if struck.

She turns so that she faces the wall and shifts uncomfortably against the soft pounding that's taken up residence between her thighs. What has Santana done to her? Just imagining her body - bare, vulnerable, shuddering once the air hit her skin - causes the ache to ramp up low in her belly. Her hips begin to gyrate against thin air as she smashes her head into the pillow with frustration.

Is this... Brittany has heard of something of the sort from the boys that she trains with. One is already married and boasts of his exploits to the others, telling them with sure words of his adventures with his new wife. Her ears had burned but she had listened intently as he described taking her throughout the night, spread open for him, sliding right into her heat. The youngest boy, no older than twelve summers, had furrowed his brow and asked how. Wouldn't it hurt, after all? They laughed at his expense before they leaned close to him as if to whisper a secret. Brittany had swayed on the spot like a willow tree helplessly caught in the breeze; _If she likes you_, he had said, _and wants you, it becomes sticky and easy to touch. That is how you know she is ready._

One of her fingers tentatively slides down again, close to the base. As her fingertip touches the clenching ring of muscle she realizes how _hot_ she is, stifled under the blankets. Though the room is pitch black with the extinguishing of the lamp, her body glistens with sweat.

Does she like Santana? Is that why she's so... _ready?_

Brittany admits to herself, cautiously trailing her fingers through her warmth, that she enjoys Santana's presence. Her smile, her mischievous smirk. The way her eyes light up when she sees something she enjoys, the crinkle of her brow when there is something she doesn't understand. Brittany remembers those days in the bush when she was so carefree, contentment making her glow in the sun, unshackled from the worries that chewed her up from the inside. Sometimes she would give Brittany her _sólarljós-bros _and something would take flight within her chest, like a flock of birds beating about her ribcage.

She lets out a muted gasp as one finger presses firmly into that bump. It's silky and pulsing and she feels like she's drowning, unable to get enough air as her eyes roll back in her head. _Yes, you like Santana, _whispers her mind even as she begins to circle with clumsy movements, _you wish to touch her and hold her and see her like you did tonight._

Brittany sinks her teeth into the strong swell of her bicep as her rhythm starts to deteriorate. All the air in her lungs vanishes and her body vibrates, stuck on some precipice - there is an end coming that terrifies her, yet she can't stop. It's like someone else has taken control of her body. Her muscles clamp and her stomach tenses and her back arches, and all she needs is that little more- just that little bit- oh _gods_-

_I want to kiss her._

Brittany's world implodes and all attempts at being quiet fail as a low, tortured groan rips itself from her throat. She is falling, flying, spiralling off into the furthest branches of Yggdrasil. Her body shudders and pulls itself back until her bones creak in protest, flush consuming her skin; nothing has ever felt this good, _nothing_. It carries on for a small eternity, twitching and whimpering in the sheets until it all becomes too much and she pulls her fingers away, pulling out and trailing wet streaks along her skin.

After a moment's hesitation she sloppily slides her fingers into her mouth and revels in whatever had just occurred, her feet twitching every so often with the aftershocks. _Like an earthquake_, she thinks lazily, eyes already drooping shut. Her muscles ache but in a good way, so sensitive that she has to yank her shirt from her head and drop her (ruined) breeches. Brittany's last thought before she drifts off into a dead sleep is the unshakable certainty that nothing after this will ever be the same.

Santana rests in her own bed with a face so hot it almost glows in the dark.

* * *

><p><strong>July 25<strong>**th****, 912**

Ever since that night, Santana can't stop thinking.

Not that it's necessarily a bad thing - her nightmares have been almost non-existent as of late, nothing more than shadowy voids flitting in and out of her consciousness. It has allowed them both the blessing of dreamless sleep, the rumble of Brittany's inhalations a backdrop to the night.

Except, for Santana, her sleep is nothing close to blank.

Her mind is saturated by random forms, flashes of bright colours, a mounting heat rising up and up until it bursts and she wakes, drenched in another kind of sweat with a vicious ache between her thighs. All she remembers is tendrils of blonde hair in her fingers and low, animalistic sounding groans that make her body react in the strangest ways. She knows it's Brittany haunting her dreams, but she doesn't feel irritated like she knows she should.

Instead, she's intrigued.

It all started that one night where she laid awake, listening to the whines and moans coming from the other bed. At first she thought her companion was in pain and made to get out from under her sheets, but then a rather low hum clued her in to the fact that Brittany wasn't suffering at all. Her face went hotter than she ever remembered it being, and she burrowed herself down, guiltily listening in until it finished with a sharp gasp and settled down into silence. That's when the dreams started.

It is strange, thinking of Brittany as a sexual being. The girl doesn't seem interested in anyone in the slightest, giving nary a glance to the boys that call her over, nor the men her father insists she meet. Santana has no qualms about admitting her appeal - everyone with eyes can see that the warrior is gorgeous, all long legs and lean muscles with a graceful bone structure. The scars that riddle her skin are more charming than unnerving; Santana finds herself often tracing the one she received the night they met, a thin white stripe that runs over the curve of her jaw and near the hollow of her throat from the bite of the beserker's axe. Brittany lets her, lips splitting into a grin where the line stretches and disappears under the shadow of her bone.

Brittany is none the wiser, but Santana feels the telltale warmth on her cheeks when she watches the other for too long, memories of the dark form under the sheets that were peeled away come morning, clad in nothing but cloth shorts that barely brushed the beginnings of the taller girl's thighs. Santana closed her eyes to the powerful flex of those muscles, peeking open only when she heard the rustling of the wardrobe and the rustle of linen slipping over sleep warmed skin.

As it stands, Santana is grateful that the weather has been foul as of late. Once again the rain has come, not in as great a quantity, but still enough that it causes the population to cover themselves from the chilling spray. The ocean is grey and murky, churning angrily, rippling with the constant pelting of water upon its surface. The priestess wonders absently if the elements are uneasy with the rumoured battles that rage across the sea; every passing day she feels the air shift, tense and nervous. The people do not know, but Santana does. Something is coming.

"You feel it too." A statement, not a question. Santana swallows a yelp and the instinctive clenching of her muscles as the tall man steps in beside her. His eyes are talon sharp and trained on her, black robes rustling against his skin.

"There is nothing to feel." Her denial falls flat at the amusement written into the lines of his skin and he turns his gaze to the troubled ocean. Around them, shadows elongate and retreat - their frosty touch crawls across Santana's skin and she shudders, remembering the dreams of darkness and the voice of the void.

They watch in silence for moments, the bustle of people around them forgotten.

"The ones down below are paralyzed by fear and their own foolish ignorance," Styrr says, eyes riveted onto the sliver where the miserable sky meets the sea. "They refuse to believe in magic and the glory it can bring."

Santana snorts but can't help the way her sight turns to him, like a moth lured into the flame. "Am I to believe your definition of magic is in any way glorious?"

"Perhaps. It is for you to decide, is it not?"

Something cold brushes against her fingers and she jerks away with a scowl. "Stop playing games. I will _never_ fall into you and your lies. Mami warned me about men like you."

Styrr looks at her then, eyes a mixture between curious and warning. "Men like me, priestess?"

"The ones who go about their lives as if the world should bow at their feet, when in reality they are no more powerful than the next man! You hide in the shadows that your Master brings but never try and embrace the light. You corrupt others with your influence. I refuse to be one of your conquests."

"What if I told you my Master has made me more than a man?"

She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. The twitch of her brow betrays her curiosity.

"In the countries of Francia and Britain, Iberia and Germania, they underestimate women. They call them weak, fragile, unable to be of use. They are cast aside and away from the public eye." He pauses and purses his lips. "Here, people are smarter. They embrace the fact that women are skilled in magic, able to weave something out of nothing. Most of them - not all, it will never be all - are treated with something resembling respect. But there... they are burned as witches. Do you know this, priestess?"

She does. Santana remembers stepping briefly into Prestebi upon her journey to arrive in the North, weary from travelling on a cramped boat and little sleep. The priestess had never been anywhere, let alone to Britain, where they spoke in strange tongues that sounded guttural, grating on the ears compared to her silken pronunciation. Upon retrospection, it sounded much more like Norse than anything else she had ever heard before.

There had been a gathering. Santana, ever curious and constantly ignoring advice, slunk forward to investigate. Though she could not see through the throng of human bodies, there was the distinct smell of something cooking.

It was then that she heard the screams.

She had fought her way to the front only to almost run into a priest, black robes billowing, white tab at his throat vibrating with the force of his words. Two women were tied to a blazing stake - their faces stricken and grotesquely distorted through the flames. Upon their bellies had been carved a cross, stretching from the hollow of their collarbone to their navel, and another word scraped brutally into their foreheads. Even without the knowledge of their language, she knew all too well what it said.

_Sorceress. _

She blinks hazily when Styrr nods, almost sensing her thoughts.

"I am a seið-mann because that is what my Master requires of me. Gender is but a silly notion that others use to define themselves accordingly in order to fit better into society. In places where they ignore women, cast them aside and let them slip away unseen, I will be a woman. It makes no difference to me. Much like your friend, Bretagne."

Santana frowns at the tall man before her. Someone that is willing to be another gender? She supposes it shouldn't be such a shock - Brittany is defiantly male in her mannerisms, refusing to be the sweet little girl her father perhaps wanted at the start. But she knows that under her clothes she is female, with a supple body and slim muscles.

"She acts like one, but knows she is another. How is this the same?"

"Do you not believe she can act like her given sex, if it was so required?" Santana glances over at Brittany, long hair catching the weak sunlight, lips split into a grin that shows her teeth.

"I suppose. She seems... adverse to it."

"Yes," Styrr muses with a hint of a smirk, "when you spend your life being one thing, why would you give in and be somebody else?"

Another cold wind brushes through her hair and Santana shakes her head vigorously, crossing her arms with a mighty scowl. The first intelligent conversation in months and she lets her guard down... pathetic. "What is your point, mystic?"

"I am more than a man because I am not only a man, Lopez. Do not underestimate me because of what I do - or do not - possess. Here, perhaps, I am Styrr Syvurr, born of Tanmaurk, but in the realms of Francia where their town corrupts our words, I am Sue Sylvester, abrasive traveler. Their tongues are numb from reciting prayer and say only what they wish to know."

Santana tries to picture a woman in his place and comes up surprisingly easily with another, similar form - a bit shorter, a bit thinner - with the same eerie eyes and longer, shaggier hair. "Stop pretending you care for my success."

Styrr grins, sharp and full of teeth. "I care only because I am told to care, priestess. My Master whispers to you, does it not?"

She wheels on him then, staff brandished and lips curled. Around them, the air crackles with energy. "It is you!" She shouts angrily. "I knew it was you! What are you doing to me? What do you _want?_"

They hold gazes for what seems like an eternity. Santana sees the sticky sliver of shadow slip between Styrr's open fingers like a snake, winding and twisting over and over again around his knuckles and devouring the skin only to relinquish it a moment later. His body is tense but his eyes are calm, relaxed - he knows she would never risk endangering others with her magic. If possible, the sun dims.

"Leave me alone." Santana murmurs. "Let me sleep. That is all I ask."

"You know in your heart of hearts, priestess, that it will never be that simple."

She hates that he's right.

"Santana?" Comes another voice, a hand laying itself firmly upon her shoulder. Automatically all the tension seeps upwards and away, her body sagging momentarily before another hand places itself on the curve of her hip with worry. "Are you well?" Brittany glances up and her glare instantly hardens when she spies the aggressor standing with a much too interested expression on his face. Calculating, almost. It sends unease shooting up her spine.

"Leave her be." Brittany spits in Norse, tugging the smaller girl away.

"I have barely said a word to her, girl." Styrr says neutrally, closing his fist around the moving darkness where it dissipates into nothingness. "Perhaps the lack of sleep has gone to her head?"

The warrior almost yells, but the hand upon her own halts her. "No, Brittany." Santana says, fingering the runestone in her pocket. "Leave it."

So she does.

As they walk away from the unmoving figure, Styrr tilts his head up curiously. "Strange," he hums to himself, "are they aware of their bond?"

_No._ Comes the hiss upon the winds. _But they will be. Do not harm it, for it will make her stronger than ever before. _

Styrr begins to nod, but stops himself with a frown. "But... the warrior is the one that halts your progress, is she not?"

_Perhaps. But in the end, the flame of their affection will be their downfall. The priestess cares too much for those she cannot save and the warrior leads a life of violence. When she perishes, there will be nothing but shadow. _

"You wish me to kill the viking?"

_You will not harm her! _The voice is stern, shaking the foundations of his core. _She will die of her own foolish actions; I See and therefore it Is. That is when the priestess will come to me. That, my Prophet, is when we will rise._

* * *

><p>It has been strange, living in Kaupang. Many things are the same as in Aarhus; the sea, the people, the work. If he doesn't think too hard about it, it doesn't hurt. He can lose himself in the duties presented to him and the weight of the collar around his neck and avoid the way he so desperately misses his father and the baby sister lost in the heat of the battle. He knows his momma sees it too - her eyes get so unbearably sad sometimes and she closes herself off to the world, breasts heavy and aching with milk that has nowhere to go. The priestess tries her best, whispering soothing words and dancing her talented fingers across her skin to ease her pain, but she is not the miracle they require.<p>

They ceased placing the knitbone on her wound when it became evident the threat for infection had passed. He is glad - the pungent smell lingers in the little room that has become hers, and the other slaves shoot them dirty looks when it worms its way into the cracks of their home. The other day she had managed to stand after the priestess had fashioned a type of sling that kept her weakened arm close to her body, guiding her outside where she sat heavily on a bench and watched the rising of the sun.

The priestess has been up often before dawn recently. She brushes it off as nothing, but the boy sees the exhaustion under her eyes.

Now he rubs his palms gingerly into the atrophied muscles of his mother's back, carefully avoiding the nasty dip where her flesh has simply... withered away. Still, he feels a great burning anger towards the _níðingr_ that shadows Santana's footsteps, with her bright blue eyes and working body and guileless smile, who can touch and joke with the priestess without a care. What business has a woman with a weapon? It's no wonder misfortune follows her footsteps.

"You look like a thunderhead, my love." His mother gently brushes the shaggy bangs from his face - she smiles as she used to but he can't find it in him to return the sentiment.

He licks his lips and leans into her touch; almost losing her once has opened up the sealed gates of his affection. Now, he never hesitates to show his love.

"I should tell her."

"Tell whom what,_ ástin mín_?"

He glances outside where Bretagne laughs with Santana, wrapping her up in a one-armed embrace before jogging off while waving back. For a moment something troubled flickers over Santana's face, slick and fleet, but it vanishes with nothing to betray it but the crease of her brow. He curls his lips into a resemblance of a sneer. "What she did to you... she should know. The priestess should refuse the company of people like _her_."

Long fingers turn firm as they force his gaze back to her. His mother's expression is something he's never seen on her before; stern and angry and entirely disapproving. "You will do no such thing. It is up to the girl to come clean to Santana upon her own time."

"But-"

"_No,_ Reinn. I have forgiven her. She has spared me from death and you much worse a fate. Can you not do the same?"

His body slackens in compliance but his mind refuses to release his discord.

They are saved any further conversation by Santana bustling into the room in a flurry of robes and clinking charms. Sandalio yips and bounds over to Reinn, winding himself like a cat through his skinny legs and huffing in pleasure when he giggles and goes to scratch behind his ears. The two women look on fondly with a smile on their lips. "Well, _madre?_" Santana lets her own language slip in here and there with a heavy accent and a sheepish smile, but continues regardless, uncorking her medicine pouch and sweeping her raven hair back over her shoulders. Her eyes are brighter today, lighter. Sleep has come in the night.

"Well, priestess." She nods in agreement, carefully lifting her crippled arm to shoulder-height like she has strained to do so many times before. Santana's lithe grasp guides her along with encouraging murmurs and critical eyes, scanning the length of her bones and the density of what remains of her flesh. It has healed as well as it could, but it pains her she cannot do more.

The priestess perches herself behind the older woman, pressing gently into the twitching muscles surrounding the chasm. _To be suddenly lost of such strength, _Santana thinks sadly, _it would be nothing but a horrible burden._ Sandalio seems to sense her turmoil and leans heavily against her shins, his flanks a warm and reassuring weight.

"Hurt?"

"Sometimes."

A hum of consideration. "A spear, yes?" Her finger touches the obvious indent where the head went in; the nerves have long since died to be replaced by thick, numb ropes, like worms. Much like the ones wrapping over the bone of Brittany's hip.

"Her spear."

Two sets of eyes look up; the warning in one overlooked for the curiosity in the other.

"Who?"

He hesitates - the glare being drilled into his forehead is enough to make him wither away. But the priestess is paying the utmost attention to him - _him _- and it loosens his tongue enough for the words that burn to slip out. "Bretagne."

Everything in Santana turns to stone. Her palm halts where it has covered the wound. Surely... surely he lies. Brittany would never do such a thing. No, he has it wrong. "No. No, wrong."

"I-"

"_Reinn._"

"I saw. She threw and it hit _móðir."_

"No-"

"_You_ saw blood on her. Blood _always_ on her. She is a viking, a _níðingr. _She hurts!"

Bile rises up the back of Santana's throat and she draws away almost as if struck, eyes riveted onto the ugly crater on the otherwise flawless expanse of the woman's skin. She herself reaches to her, but Santana scrambles upright with wide eyes and a head adamantly shaking from side to side. "No, it cannot. You must be wrong. Brittany would never commit such an act, I _know_ her," she rambles off in Spanish, the words becoming more and more agitated as her spiel progresses, "and know that she would never hurt anybody like this unless they were attacking her and she had reason to fight. I _know_!"

But does she? Each picture floats by in her mind; Brittany in the tavern with her spear glinting red; Brittany reflected in the firelight with something unreadable in her eyes; Brittany slashing down with her axe and drowning in death; Brittany, Brittany, Brittany.

She moans and clutches at her head - for the first time in weeks the white blooms unbidden, burning away at the flesh of her hands, catching her sleeves and charring them into nothing. Through her turmoil she hardly feels the pain, nor notices when she wheels and the others flinch back from her despair. "P-priestess?" ventures the mother cautiously, but Santana simply sees through her for a moment before everything tenses and she's gone.

Her feet pound and her lungs ache but her fury fills her with an unstoppable wind. If she can _find_ Brittany, just get her to explain like she always does, it'll all be fine and her chest won't feel like it's about to burst. She just... she needs... blankness crawls over the edge of her vision as she fights her way through her own slamming heart and the uphill climb until she staggers onto the training grounds.

"Brittany!" She tries to simply shout but it comes out as a roar; the aforementioned girl turns and there is a moment of stricken terror on her face at the foreigner, so obviously in disarray, robes burnt and eyes glimmering and teeth bared into a mixture of anger and desperation.

She advances and so does Brittany. None of her sparring partners jeer at her now, for they are dumb with nerves and simply watch the unfolding scene. Santana comes to her and nothing works for a moment, not her sight, nor her throat, and she stares as the warrior searches her face.

"S-Santana?" Through the glow surrounding her she can see her hands, curled into claws, flesh bubbling and blistered with an angry red tinge.

"Did you?" It comes out softly. So soft, it's difficult to hear. Brittany furrows her brow and bends down to look at her with confused eyes - they're so bright and blue and Santana thinks, _No, of course he lies._

"Did I?"

"Hurt her." Her friend's face is blank as a newborn canvas and Santana brushes her fingers through her mane in frustration - the scent of singed hair coming too late. "The... _madre_. _Mo-móðeer. Móðir."_

Then something happens. She can't name it, can't put a label on it. But Brittany's face crumples into bitter remorse as the light dawns and then goes out and all that is left is a pleading expression and rapid, hushed words that barely make any sense to her. "Santana... I... so sorry, so _so _sorry. I threw and she was suddenly there where another should have been and it hit her. I never wanted to harm her, I promise you. I could swear it upon the loyalty of my father's father if it made you understand me more."

All Santana hears is _sorry_.

"You... you..." The smaller girl stumbles away as the energy flares violently around her hands - trees moan and winds howl and the earth itself seems to be in agony along with her. _She lied to me_. In truth there were no lies, simply well-placed deceptions, but Santana is _tired_ of losing trust in the ones she cares for and snarls when Brittany tries to advance, hands open and reaching for something that isn't there. Remorse? Forgiveness? If she would be so inclined she could see that Brittany is wrecked with rosy cheeks and quivering lips and a face that screams _I didn't mean to_,but all that she is tuned towards is the deep, dark thing inside her chest that whispers, _No_. It creeps up her arms, chewing through the flesh - she hardly feels a thing.

"Santana..."

But she turns again and runs, completely ignoring the tears trailing freely down pale flesh.

* * *

><p>All the air is stolen from her lungs as she submerges herself into the fjord.<p>

The icy waters wrap around her bare flesh and make her cry out as the pain of the cold numbs the searing burn in her being, extinguishing the flame of her power and soothing the devastating injuries she has yet to notice. It seeps into her nose, her mouth, her ears; she opens her eyes in the murky dark and refuses to slam them shut at the salt that stings and turns them an irritated red. She will try anything, _anything _to rid herself of this uncontrollable dragon that rages once more against the confines of her ribcage, runestone forgotten upon the shore, betrayal roaring in her stolen voice. Santana forces herself deeper, further, until the seaweed snares her wrists like fingers, a mockery of the embrace Brittany had given nights before.

_No!_ Her lungs are close to bursting but she trails her battered fingers against the soft sand and sharp rocks of the bottom, revelling in the fractured sunlight that filters in from the surface. Here she is light but unbelievably heavy, and it takes her mind far away from the pains of her present.

Has Brittany truly lied to her so freely? Is she nothing more than the barbarians of her kinsmen, looting and pillaging and killing with such abandon as they see fit? She is loath to attach such a horrendous title to the beautiful girl she has come to know, but a secret of this nature is too hard to ignore. Why Brittany? Why not anyone else in this wretched world? Even now she remembers the spear, flung with deadly accuracy, ripping through flesh and embedding itself in hard bone and she tumbles from her position in a pool of growing red, the babe falling from her arms to be forever lost in the fray. Suddenly Reinn's contempt of the warrior becomes all too understandable - even with this out from the darkness she finds she cannot quite share his pain. Not when she has been shown nothing but kindness.

But still, _still_, she remembers the weeks of fevered dreams and gaping wounds, changing the bandages laden with knitbone and pungent oils. She remembers the mother's cries into the dark as she so desperately calls upon Ataecina to ease her pain. The woman had not yet been granted passageway into the the rebirth but death had been so close a friend for wretched weeks, licking at her fingers and touching at her toes.

Santana breaks the surface with a mighty gasp and the contrast of the dull, miserable summer air and the frozen sea is startling - she shakes and trembles but pushes herself down again; a cleansing worth repeating until she forgets all but the most important things in life. Her thoughts have begun to shut down the longer she stays submerged in the depths, lazily floating through her consciousness without tether. Below her the water-children giggle and brush their slimy hands across her narrow hips and swelling breasts, eyes hidden in the dark. _Here comes one to play with us, _they whisper in the language of the waves. Santana turns over and over, her arms drifting out from her sides where they are taken in their gentle grasp and stretched out towards them. _Look at how easily she comes. Are you so eager to leave your friend behind?_

Their watery voices sound from a distance. She sees their waterlogged forms out of the corner of her eyes, but when she tries to focus they disappear in puffs of dispersed sand. Friend? Brittany... should she be angry? Yes, yes. She hurt her. Lied. The dragon has dulled now, stopped the frenzied pounding of her heart. She no longer thinks like a hurricane.

Santana moves to kick upwards but they grab at her ankles. _No, no... you cannot leave us! See how your soul drifts away! _She kicks harder - one breaks off but another takes its place. Lethargy has deadened her limbs - under the dark deeps, she can't summon any shred of flame.

As a rush of bubbles escape from the open seal of her lips a figure towers above the surface. All light dims, and for a moment she believes herself blind again, before another touch, familiar and sickening, grabs strong hold of her arms and hauls her with haste from the water. The children's grasps are no match for this intruder and she bursts through into open air with a massive crash and a sucking inhale. She drops to the ground where she writhes, hacking and coughing, tendrils of onyx hair clinging to the curve of her jaw.

"It seemed you wished not to leave, priestess." Styrr sits calmly on the bank and watches her with those infuriatingly clear eyes, one hand outstretched where the shadow retreats from her skin and disappears into the cup of his hand.

"I-it was a good... idea at... t-the time." Now that she looks she can see that her palms have crisped and turned black, the rage of her emotions eclipsing all rational thought until it burned away all usable flesh. Still gasping, she stares at them blankly, noting with mounting alarm that as she flexes them, she feels nothing at all. Perhaps the water had saved the fate of her sanity, but her skin was not nearly as lucky.

She sits shakily back on her haunches. No doubt it will start to hurt like the fire that ruined them when she thaws, and soon enough the infection will steal inside. Santana twitches her fingers but finds she can do barely more than move them.

"Oh Goddess..." she whispers in horror, frantically trying to call upon something, _anything_, that would fix something not meant to be broken. The mockery of what used to be her hands, burned into to the very bone, remain unchanged.

Something shuffles and she barely notices the change until a larger, pale hand flits over and touches the hard flesh that remains. Styrr studies her injuries and hums to himself, eyes narrowed and contemplative as he cracks and splits the skin to reveal a red, weeping core. Wherever it is exposed, Santana whimpers.

"I can fix it." He says nonchalantly, looking up at her. She stares back in bewilderment but he is completely serious - the set of his brow and the purse of his lips is calculating, not sarcastic. Something in the back of her head is screeching _danger, danger, fall back, run_ but the numbed repulsion she has to the own parts of her body makes her hesitate. "How?" Santana rasps, throat raw from salt. Nothing can repair something like this. Most have their hands severed from their body to prevent their death - others simply try and bear the pain.

_Oh gods, what am I to do?_

"You will have to overcome your own prejudice, priestess. I cannot gift something upon you unless you are willing to receive it."

To answer her question, a rope of soft shadow flits against the jagged edges of her palm.

"You... you can heal me?"

His smile is thin and fleeting but there. A small comfort. "I can do anything with the power granted to me. _Anything._" A million possibilities flit through her mind but the most prominent is the pain that has begun now that the chill of the water has worn off. Humidity clings to her bare skin, and for the first time she realizes she is without clothes. Styrr notices her alarm and snorts in derision.

"Do not flatter yourself, girl. I have no interest in your physicality."

She shifts, uncomfortable, but her arm brushes against the shore and sends a thunderbolt of pain through her being. She hisses and flinches away from the ground, curling into herself and cradling her injured parts to her chest.

"Well? Have you an answer?"

_Beware the unnatural dark, Santana._

But all she can think about is the growing agony awakened by attention. What is one break for limbs that function once more? Surely it can't be such an injustice. _Mother, forgive me,_ she whispers in her mind on the chance she will be heard, and shakily offers her ruined hands. "Do it."

His snake-smile alone almost makes her reconsider the offer, but before she can protest he has taken her hands in one of his own. The other hovers over the rocky shore, twitching ever so slightly, until it presses down on a pointed stone and drags itself along to create a deep incision that seeps blessed red from the wound. Eyja's words come back to her - _Never use human blood, Santana; bad things_ - at the most useless of times, as he has already turned his palm around to let it pool in the creases of his skin and raises it up as an offering.

"Come to me and let me heal,

cure the girl and let her feel."

_Something_ curls its way up over his outstretched arm - Santana watches in repulsed fascination as it throbs with its own heartbeat, twining like a serpent and leaving slimy trails of black in its wake - and worms itself into the cup of his palm. It expands and retracts; veins pulse and the distinct scent of copper wafts outwards as it swells, gorges itself, before slithering up and out of sight.

_Did it retreat into him?_ She thinks with horror as the muscles in his arm bulge for a moment before settling. His cut hand - miraculously closed - places itself over the backs of her own so that he cradles them both in his own as billowing shadow seeps from under his nails and crawls its way up her arms. Santana shudders and tries not to jerk away, jaw clenched and trembling, as what feels like a million tiny icicles prick from elbow to fingertip and push their way inside her skin. Her forearms are covered in writhing shadow like a shroud.

"Now the healing begins."

The priestess does not know how long they sit there, hands clasped, but eventually the darkness returns - in its wake it reveals pristine skin, flawless and unharmed, as darkly caramel as the rest of her body. So too does it go until it pulls itself from the gloss of her nails and she is free with no broken flesh to see. Santana turns her palms over in wonderment, noting nothing but two small, black scars running horizontally across her hands.

"How..."

"There are many things you do not know, girl." His face is calm but he revels in her awe, basking in the pleased murmur within his head. "Know this, however."

She looks up curiously.

"The pain you feel over the betrayal of your friend cuts deep, yes, but all things can heal. Flesh, bone, emotion. If you cut to the source of your agony, perhaps the betrayal will cease?"

"Stop speaking in riddle. What is it you want?"

"Not what I want..." he rummages in his bag until he comes up with an old scroll, bound with the seal cracked neatly in two. The tassells seem to move of their own volition and when she touches it, her whole being turns as cold as her almost-grave. "but what you want." He presses it into her hands like it pains him physically to be kind.

When she unravels it, the words dance across the page. Simply attempting to focus gives her a sharp headache between her eyes.

"It will come into clarity when there is something you desire so deeply, you want little else. You have seen first hand the miracles I can produce from this very magic... there is another you care for that could undoubtedly benefit, no?"

An older face flashes before her eyes with a kind smile and a crippled shoulder.

"Yes," Styrr breathes, "very good, priestess."

She clenches it in her fist for a moment but pushes it away. "No, I refuse. This black magic is not something I want for myself. I've seen the pain it brings, never better than the rewards. I am in your debt for what you have done for me, surely, but I will not be the dealer myself."

The tall man stands up gracefully - he looks haggard from this angle, a willowy tree that has withstood many winters. "Think about it. Your dispute with Bretagne will pass, but her injury will stay the same. You have the power to fix it, priestess. Why do you hesitate?"

After he leaves, Santana sits on the bank for a long time. Naked, she stares at the scroll, willing forth answers that she must divine on her own.

* * *

><p>In case you were wondering, <em>níðingr<em> means bastard. This, intriguingly enough, does have some root despite Brittany obviously having a father, even if you'll have to wait to learn why.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: How fitting that we break 100 000 words on the 10th chapter with 100 reviews. 100! I can't believe it. I'm so flattered by all of your kind words - from a simple expression of your enjoyment to a detailed, descriptive blow by blow of what you like and dislike. This chapter took me a long time to write because it was a... delicate situation, to say the least. Some of you might not like where this is headed, but trust me, it will all be worth it in the end. 17 000 words here to make up for the delay in updating, what do you say? Thank you so much to **LeMasquerade**, as per usual, who made this so much better than what it could have been. I bid you all to enjoy.

**Warning: Character Death**

* * *

><p>Chapter 10<p>

**I limp out to the sound**

**of your cannons in my heart**

**July 29****th****, 912**

Samuel Ifan likes to think himself wise.

He has sailed many miles with his father, travelled by horseback and moved on foot through dozens of different towns. He considers his life to be blessed, able to experience what so many of his peers never will. Over the years he has witnessed the plains of Iberia, the massive mountains of Francia, the churning sea that he believes, one day, will swallow Britain in its entirety. Never has he been stuck in one town for more than a few months, chained into the daily struggle others fight through just in order to put bread in the mouths of their young.

No, the Church takes care of that.

He swallows roughly at the shouting that booms overhead. Here, in the dark of the hold, he can see little past the swelling in his right eye or the pounding of his head. Blood trickles down one temple but he deigns not to wipe it away, for it is more effort than he is willing to exert. Has it truly been only one day since he was safe in his borrowed bed listening to the murmurs of his father as he lulled him to sleep?

His father was a renowned priest for many years. His whole life had been scriptures and black robes and loud, sweeping sermons that would rattle the rafters with their power, with his son as his secret weapon.

Samuel knows he's always been different.

Ever since he was seven and woke to his hands weeping red and two neat holes hammered straight through as if impaled by a stake. Ever since his father reached for him and found the same wounds upon his feet. From that day he was no longer Samuel, _never _Samuel, but instead Samuel the Touched.

It is hard for him to remember a time before the manifestations. They had always been there - he would be seized with such an intense bout of pain that his fists would spasm and clench to the point that no one could unfurl them until blood started to slide through his tightly curled palms. When they reopened, the previously healed wounds would be split once more, leaking something that looked like blood but smelled much too sweet.

"It is a sign!" Always roared his father, straightening up and raising his hands in the air. One by one the audience would agree, raising their voices in salutation as they begun to believe, like the others, that he was something else entirely.

"He is Samuel," he had said, eyes glowing with fervour, "blessed of God! Touch his skin and know that He speaks to him without prayer!"

Each would touch him, asking prayer and protection that Samuel didn't know how to give. He is simply a man - a man with the pains of Christ and the resounding voice of God in his head. Countless had tried to explain the wounds and the voices he would hear, but none were successful. Like Jesus nailed to the cross, said his father proudly, it shows that Samuel was chosen by our Creator. He was often given special treatment, viewed as holy or blessed. Some shied away from him and the things in his head, but he never minded terribly - not all knew the beauty of the Lord.

But here... here they are untouched by the Light. In this dark, damp ship, with his hands shackled behind his back and his scalp bleeding from the beating he received, he knows that his father had been wrong all along. There had been a Viking raid upon the coasts of Britain simply a few miles from where they were resting. Samuel had never been to the North, of frozen seas and men in thick pelts, and knew that danger lurked within their cold eyes. But his father, zealous upon the support of the villagers and the warmth of his Lord, set out in an attempt to speak reason with them to give up their heathen gods and turn towards Christianity. He begged and pleaded to leave them be - they seemed content as they were and father, they're _deadly_ - but his complaints got him nowhere. They still marched towards their ships, and were soundly killed or captured.

They hadn't managed to find Father Ifan. Samuel had pushed him from the fray and told him to run, to report back to the Church so they may know of the battle that rages in full swing. (The atrocities committed by the crusaders in the name of God are always in the back of his mind, nagging, whispering of hypocrites and false prophets.) Soon after he was captured, and they recognized both his scars and the cross around his neck.

Samuel knows he is going to die here. He feels it upon every breath of the wind, every passing glance. They will use him as a lamb for sacrifice and he will go willingly, for the battle is far from over.

If he has to atone for the sins of his father, so be it. He knows he has done no wrong and it is enough.

* * *

><p>Everything is wrong.<p>

Brittany bitterly throws down her spear and rakes her fingers through her free-flowing hair, closing her eyes and tugging back _hard _on the loose strands in an effort to focus. Instead, all she receives is a sharp pain in her skull and the mounting frustration that threatens to bubble to the surface. The boys snicker, but a venomous, exhausted glare sends their stares in the other direction.

Something about her hollow, desperate gaze makes them flinch and back away. She'd be smug, but it takes too much energy.

There has been no sleep for the viking. Every night she had dutifully woke to tend to Santana, only to be batted away with bared teeth and dark eyes. It reminds her of their first few days together, when even a quick motion sent her into a paranoid frenzy. Being unable to help her friend (who is so obviously in pain - she has started calling out in her strange tongue, but the words sound different... hissing, off their intended alignment) weighed heavily on her; she would toss and turn long after Santana had both roused and then submerged into uneasy slumber once more. She finds herself stumbling over her weapons and even her own feet, searching for eye contact that refused to come. Afi had gently laid a palm over her forehead and asked if she wanted to sleep with him for a while.

(Everyone knew of their spat, if one could call it that. Santana, with her arms of flame, was difficult to miss. Brittany still doesn't know how she escaped without harm.)

But conceding would admit defeat, and Brittany was never one to back down. So instead she lies at all hours of the night, breathing in time to the whimpers across the room.

She knew it was getting out of hand when _Anvindr_ of all people looked critically at her and simply said to apologize to her. If he, with his burning hatred and crippled limb, could see the obvious solution, then why couldn't she? Twice she had tried to initiate conversation with Santana, and twice she had tripped herself at the last second in her haste to get away. She tried... honestly, she did. But the guilt and the shame would rear up so acidic in her throat and she'd lose all courage ever instilled in her. Her nails have been bitten down to stubs over the course of the week.

Santana still refused to talk to her. It's as if she's gone mute these past days, talking to no one on exception of Eyja, Noach and... Styrr.

Brittany isn't sure what to think about that. Santana looks torn simply being in his presence, between two worlds she isn't allowed to have. At times she flinches away from things only she can see and turns that accusing glare on him, all whirlwind eyes and shiny-bright teeth, but he simply returns her stare impassively. Brittany thinks that maybe Santana likes that, having someone who isn't scared of her. (Not that she would ever admit it.)

It's not that she thinks Santana can't have friends (that aren't her). But even she can see that he's no good for her - he walks at all manners of the night, twitching his fingers and speaking in a low, hurried voice, casting his gaze around until he can see all that stretches out before him. She thinks of him as a prophet, but doesn't yet know for whom he speaks. Or what.

"Bretagne!"

She turns and Finngeirr comes puffing up beside her in a way that makes her wrinkle her nose in distaste. The boy is only a few inches taller than her, but his tunic cinches in much too tightly at the waist - when he runs he reminds her somewhat of a whale, only less graceful. "Yes?"

"They want you on the docks. A raiding party has brought back another cargo from Britain to the south, filled with their bounty. Sveinn has said their shores are red with the blood of their fragile kinsmen."

She knows where Britain is.

"They need some help unloading it and herding them, considering they tend to put up a fight," _Ah, slaves,_ she thinks, and her gut churns uncomfortably, "but try not to take another in, yeah? Yours has made too much trouble as it is." His grin is lopsided and what he believes to be charming, but she simply smooths her expression into a blank mask that never ceases to unnerve.

"Santana belongs to no one."

He hesitates, eyeing her critically for a moment before deciding it's best to let her be. "If you say as such." Finngeirr turns to leave, face confused when she doesn't follow. "Come on, then. I was told to bring you, since you stopped doing anything useful a few days ago."

Her eyes darken and he holds up his hands.

"Not my words!"

With a huff she storms past him, strands of blonde flicking his face as she sweeps by. Sometimes people can't help comparing Brittany to a blizzard ready to break, all stormy skies and ominous wind but no snowfall, waiting until the last possible moment for her to release her fury.

She tramples down the hill with heavy steps, pulling her hair back into a loose ponytail as she goes. All around her the heat of summer has hit; long gone is the bitter, miserable rain, replaced by a pleasant sun and dry air. It is the time of year where sunlight is almost constantly present - the villagers get close to no darkness, for the sun deems not to dip itself down into sleep. Brittany doesn't mind, but sometimes she misses the moon and the mysteries it brings.

People bustle by and nod their head to her as they pass. She returns their greetings half-heartedly even as she accepts a drink from one of the stragglers slumping outside the taverns. "You look like you need it," was his only excuse, and she was never one to refuse free mead.

When she steps onto the ports she instantly spots the newly-docked ship. Warriors sweep by in bright clothing and shining weapons, beards long and untamed, gashes crusted over and untended. The familiar scent of sweat and blood waft from their tunics, and their blades are edged with red. A successful raid. "Seems like a good haul this journey," observes Finngeirr, startlingly close to her ear, "what with the bloodied loot." His breath is rank, but she follows his pointed finger to the barrels being heaved over the side; one hits the dock and cracks open, spilling its sacred contents outwards, slipping through the slats of the dock to disappear into the finally gentle ocean.

Salt.

Shouts pervade her ears and she glances over to see a man peering down from above, yelling obscenities at the drunk warriors who were unable to catch the barrel. Here, salt is a much prized commodity as they have none of their own and must steal it from other countries.

A sword is drawn and before anyone can react the crystals turn red and sluggish, slipping down in a crimson froth as one of the men sputters and clutches at his stomach. He staggers once, tumbling over the side where he floats belly up like a dead fish. Brittany clenches her jaw and pointedly looks away from the mess, stepping over the little rivers of red and weaving past the foreign slaves who watch in abject horror what they must consider to be barbarities. Here, it is simply called revenge_._

If one does an injustice to you, you must return the favour to them. Murder was skipping the ranks a fair bit, and Brittany has no doubt the killer will find his actions to be unnecessarily rash when he finds his house torched and his family murdered.

Down and down she goes, nimbly twisting through the crowd and ignoring Finngeirr's lumbering steps thudding behind her. She knows of her father's wish for them to marry, and he knows of her steadfast refusal. Eventually his want will overpower her thick skull (she is seventeen and soon to be eighteen, an adult in all the wrong ways), but until then she won't speak to him unless necessary. She turns to her left when a body shifts outwards from the gloom, strong legs with soiled breeches flickering into the light before disappearing. The belly of the ship is deserted save for this one.

"Hello?" She calls out. The limbs stiffen and retract - Brittany takes a lantern from the hanging post and brings it up high. A face flinches back from the sudden glow, but she catches a glimpse of dirty blond hair caked in blood and half of a swollen cheek. He can't be any older than her, and from the way his head droops sluggishly, he seems to be in significant pain.

Brittany kneels down before him and gingerly reaches out to touch the battered one, grimacing at the split in his cracked, massive lips. They weren't easy on him. "I will not hurt you," she mumbles, placing down the lantern, "but you must stay still." The soothing tone in her voice allows him to relax. She traces the muscles in his arms and the ones she can see through his ripped shirt. Is he a soldier? Perhaps a farmhand... a glint of metal, and she sees the cross hanging across his chest, bloodied but obvious. Lines rope across his neck, like it had tried to be wrenched away.

Her hands fumble for her water skin. "Drink?" She asks and offers it to him - he eyes her warily before nodding and attempting a smile. His wince as his lip stretches makes her frown in sympathy, but she places the neck to his mouth regardless and allows him to drink. He swallows greedily, choking once but unwilling to stop.

Behind them, Finngeirr scoffs at her kindness and turns away to examine the rest of the ship.

Once he releases the mouthpiece, he tilts his head back contentedly in a way that makes the chains rattle above him. Brittany draws her axe, shushing him when he flinches back, and lands a sturdy blow on his shackles. They shiver once but don't break until she strikes them several more times, allowing one arm to fall limply to the floor. She repeats the actions on his other side, from where she can see the nasty wound that still drips blood onto his flesh.

"Finn!" She calls out into the dark hold, voice ringing ominously outwards. At her yell he comes rushing in, weapon raised, perpetual confusion wiped away into something resembling ferocity. It makes her want to laugh. "Can you find Santana and bring her to him?"

He drops his weapon slowly. "Why? Did he injure you?"

Brittany looks incredulously between him and the clearly suffering boy next to her, his blood staining deep patterns into the already dirty wood. "No, but he is."

At this Finngeirr looks nonplussed again, shrugging and re-sheathing his weapon. "Then it would be foolish to bother. He has been marked for sacrifice."

She freezes. "Sacrifice? To whom?"

"Odinn!" He says proudly, tapping the hammer pendant over his chest for emphasis. "This one was part of the attack on the raid. Bunches of villagers with funny little weapons and no armour - stood no chance. See the cross?" It was hard to ignore. "His father is a _völva _for the White Christ."

It is said as if imparting some dirty secret - whispered and disgusted. Brittany frowns slightly and brushes some of the matted hair from the prisoner's face, watching his eyes open to flicker momentarily in her direction. In a way it seems he already knows, as he does not to move despite not being bound, resigned to his fate. "We have those that practice His worship here in Nor Veg, why would he be any different?" Finngeirr scoffs again and looks at her like they all do; slow, bordering on stupid, always needing explanation. It makes her bristle silently.

"It is said that his father accompanies the crusaders on their journeys. Francia has asked him personally to aid Rollo in his conquests of Europa and beyond."

"Rollo?"

"Hrólfr of Normandy."

This boy will be nothing more than a warning. A reminder that they will not go down without a fight, and many others will fall before they succumb. A punishment to a father who has decided his duties involve pain and suffering, so he, too, will receive agony in return. It doesn't seem fair - but little about this way of life is fair, Brittany reflects, and sighs heavily instead.

"Go retrieve Santana." She says quietly.

"Breta-"

"I said go!"

Finngeirr scurries off towards the light and she turns her face back to the foreigner watching her carefully. "I apologize for him. He knows not when to remove his mouth from his mind."

The boy says something in a light twang she can recognize vaguely from the coasts of Hibernia. He points to himself as cheerfully as he can and says _Samuel_, poking his chest for good measure. She smiles at his enthusiasm and repeats back with _Bretagne._ Some light steals back into his eyes as he flails excitedly, injuries forgotten as he rambles on and on about things completely obscured, but none the less engaging. Names are woven into his tales, and though she recognizes none, nor the strange babble he speaks, it is no less entertaining. She smiles when he does and pauses a few times to give him more water, picking up where he left off when he quiets.

"The girl coming to tend to you is called Santana."

Samuel looks at her quizzically. "Santana?"

"Yes, Santana. From Iberia. A priestess of the Goddess and maybe - no, she is - the best person in all of Kaupang." A fond smile graces her lips. "Oh, she will undoubtedly grumble at you first, but try not to worry. She always does that. Really, she acts quite kind when nobody else can see. She seems to be the only one that is never mean to me." Her smile dims. "Well, she never used to be."

One of his hands tentatively snake across her own and squeeze reassuringly. She studies the cracked flesh around his nails and his large, sturdy palms. An odd wound travels the flat of his hand. When she brushes against it he flinches, but doesn't draw away. "No, no... surely it will sort itself out in the end. She does this sometimes."

Flashes of a battle and the wood leaving her fingers with almost careless vigour. A wayward shot, an eternal consequence. She grits her teeth and looks away. The boy studies her curiously, eyes scanning over her tense features warily, like he expects her to break down at any moment.

_She had received a similar look from Afi, simply a day prior. He knows to always watch her body rather than listen to her words, for her tongue often trips and shadows the intent of her meaning. "What hurts you so, barnabarn?"_

_ "Santana and I are fighting."_

_ The way Bretagne says it, so straight-forward and stripped down, leads to a bushy eyebrow raising over the wrinkled plains of his face. Though she had lacked true companionship over the course of her childhood, she was never one to let the opinions of others affect her so drastically. Looking at her now - dark circles, pale skin, down-turned lips - hints at a much deeper problem._

_ "The whole village knows this, Bretagne. You fighting does not merit such the miserable cloud over your head whenever you deign to go outside."_

_ "I simply... my body refuses to function when she disappears. Like all the air goes away and the light snuffs out and everything is less. Less of her, less of me. Perhaps I have long gone mad, but everyone I ask says these thoughts are of affection." Grandfather's other eyebrow joins his first now. He had always known she was not one for boys, choosing more to be one of them than swooned by them. Every twitch of her movement is masculine with a hint of femininity under the surface, hard and strong but still there. It has been shaped into something in between over the years - of trying to hammer herself into their mold only to come out as another thing entirely. He loves her all the more for what others would deem imperfections. (He has a nagging suspicion that the priestess does, too.)_

_ Here she looks shyly down at the ground, nervously tugging on the long swath of braided hair. He reads her truth in the bite of her lip and the twist of her feet, how her cheeks blossom into the colour of a newborn's flesh. "They believe I have an eye on a man, and say how brave and charming he must be for me to have looked at him so fondly... if only they knew."_

_ Her eyes flicker upwards for reassurance. Grandfather is, and was, many things. A warrior, a leader, an icon, a father. He has been revered for defending Kaupang against other vikings, for serving in the war of Hafrsfjord and cleaving so many skulls it is rumour that his hammer is blessed. All respect him, some fear him, but all he desires is the love of his closest kin and comrades. That is why he smiles, warm to contrast the constant iceburg of his eyes, and leans forward until their foreheads are almost touching. _

_ "You are many things to me, Bretagne, but above all you are loved. If she is what makes you happy, then I will support you in the ways that I am able." Connection between two people of the same gender is so rare he thinks it almost unheard of - some of the soft-bellied priests mumble about it in their bound book and speak of sins and strange places doomed to fire and death. To what sin is love? Perhaps he will never be a great-grandfather - ah, but magic is of the strangest brood - but his current blood comes first._

_ She positively beams (her face lights up and her teeth show and her eyes crinkle; it reminds him so much of his own daughter that it physically hurts) and throws herself at him, sinewy muscle engulfed in his massive arms. He simply smiles and lets his beard tickle her skin, trying not to note this position is almost identical the first time he ever held the her, the sole remaining piece of his girl. _

Even after the uplifting conversation, this week has been harder than when the priestess ran, for on that occasion she was the one to save her. Now she is the enemy - the one worthy of angry eyes and muttered breaths, the one that Santana will go out of her way to avoid. It hurts in a way that she's never experienced, right down the middle of her chest and through the center of her skull whenever she sees her. It feels like longing, only stronger. Different.

Deeper. It aches right where her newly-found feelings lie in wait, flaring up at every mention of her name.

Samuel says something earnestly but is interrupted by the clanking of large boots coming back down the stairs. A moment later Santana sweeps into view with an irritated Finngeirr on her heels, both of them sporting scowls. The light shining from her baubles cast unearthly shadows and sharpen her cheekbones into ethereal highlight. She stops for a moment, eyes scanning warily over the seated warrior and her pale hands tangled loosely in his equally light one, before flickering over to the wounded who stares with wide eyes and an open mouth.

"Santana." Brittany says for clarification - Samuel sighs and relaxes ever so slightly while the priestess frowns. (Perhaps it was just an excuse to say her name. Is that so cruel?)

One look at the pale, crusted skin of the stranger and she knows that this won't simply be an easy fix. Santana eyes the broken cuffs around his wrist and Brittany's unsheathed axe before kneeling down at his injured side.

"Leave, Brittany."

She tries to avoid looking at her, but from the corner of her vision she can see Brittany's sad expression. It makes her chest ache, but old injustices win out over friendship. "Santana-"

"Leave!" Brittany trips over herself in her haste to get away, mumbling mindless apologies and thumping up over the steps. They all hear her hurried pace across the deck before disappearing down the ramp and back onto solid land. Samuel frowns disapprovingly at her; she growls under her breath and touches his scalp more firmly than necessary, eliciting a yelp. Almost immediately she feels guilty and whispers _sorry_, peeling back his tangled hair, still thick with warm blood. A nasty gash trickles down his temple and undoubtedly disorients him. His lips are cut and dried over, one eye almost completely absorbed into the swollen flesh surrounding it. Not for the first time she is appalled by their brutality - she doubts he was even a soldier. "Who did this to you?" she asks, and he seems to recognize her language. His mouth moves and she understands nothing that comes out of it, but the wording is familiar.

"Finngeirr, get Noach." She commands more than asks, turning to level her stare to him. He barely hesitates, grumbling under his breath only to return a few moments later with the sailor and his ridiculous haircut.

"What do you need, priestess?" He asks, wincing at the state of the boy in front of him.

"He speaks English. Could you translate?"

Tentatively, Noach speaks to him. The words are muddled by his accent but understandable, and Samuel grins wide before flinching as his lip splits open again. They trade introductions back and forth for a moment before Noach looks over at her. "His name is Samuel Ifan of Britannia. His father is a priest for Francia's crusades and was docked in northern Britannia for a few days, only to challenge viking raiders and lose. Crushingly."

"His father, is he here?"

A pause. "No, he escaped. Most likely on his way to tell of the battle now."

She wrinkles her nose. That does not bode well for the northern countries. "Has he been sold?"

At this he goes unbearably calm with a certain sadness in his eyes. Some of his words shake when he replies to Noach, but he doesn't seem scared - instead he keeps his stare locked with Santana's and responds the best he can. Noach's brows furrow before they fall, and for the first time in weeks, Santana feels out of the loop.

"Well?"

"He... he has been marked for death."

"What?" Her voice jumps in surprise. In Botaya, there was never such a thing. They would send _criminals_ to Jaca for trial and their fates were determined by the weight of their sins. Here, perhaps simply being from another place constitutes enough reason for pain. "How does he know this? Surely he imagines things."

"They measured his neck with a noose, priestess."

Surely the irony is fitting - tending to a man who will soon die for matters unrelated. Her eyes fall upon the cross over his neck. This is why they kill him? For his religion? She _ran_ from this injustice only to fall into the opposite kind! (It is the sudden light shed upon their brutality that burns her so, the new way in which she views things. It could be any other boy, any other victim. Her thoughts would rebel one in the same.) She studies his face intently and sees no traces of bitterness in his open expression. "You do not seem to be terribly fearful of this."

Another stream of words. "He says that he will take on the burden of death if that is what his Lord requires." Something else is said, but the sailor simply presses his lips together and looks away.

Santana pauses. To what ends does one go to honour a god? She is not foolish enough to believe Ataecina is the sole power in this world - no, not anymore. But some... some do not seem to be worth the suffering.

And yet here is this boy, ready to throw away his life in an effort to please both his deity and the brutes surrounding him. She wonders what kind of a life he's led, eyeing the strange wounds on his hands and the simple shirts he wears. He looks so much like Reinn that they could almost be brothers if it was not for the eyes and language - it is an odd feeling, not to fear a man of the Lord like she has learned to do. Sometimes it was the only way to survive. She never picked up their book and knew not they preached also of love and not simply of hate, only that she was often on the receiving end of such words. He seems not scarred by his faith... not visibly, anyway. All people have their pains. Yet, is this a reason to condemn them to death? Santana has no insight on the way the minds of the northmen work; sophisticated yet savage, advanced yet primitive. She wouldn't say they fear what he brings... no, they are too proud for that. Then what? Simply a whim? Perhaps she could ask Brittany...

That thought is banished as soon as it comes upon instinct and she rubs her forehead with a scowl. They sit in silence for what seems like an eternity as her brows pull closer and closer together in angered contemplation. "Why is nothing fair?"

"Because life is a whore, priestess." Without meaning to, she snorts, smothering the sound with her palm until the sailor grins and wiggles those abominable eyebrows at her. This time Samuel snickers and tries to replicate his actions, which sends the three of them into near-hysterical laughter. Their voices ring loudly through the abandoned hull, vibrating through Finngeirr, who stares at them as if mad. Perhaps they are. Would it be so bad?

Samuel says something and Noach grimaces visibly, subtly shaking his head but only after Santana catches it. "What is it?" The sailor tries to look innocent despite the Briton curiously awaiting an answer. He looks much like a little boy caught telling a lie after his best efforts to hide it. "Noach, what did he say?"

Samuel repeats his question, and this time the sailor sighs. "He asks about Bretagne."

Everything in her stiffens and she forces her face to become impossibly cold. "What of her?"

Santana refuses to face her fears when wounded, choosing to run like a cornered animal in the shadows and take time to lick her injuries. They all know she hurts as deeply as Brittany, but through a carefully distinguished array of barbs and thunderstorms she keeps this separate, while her companion lets it write itself with abandon over everything she does. Even her steps, so normally sharp and bubbly, droop at Santana and her rejection.

"He wants to know why you seem to hurt her so."

Though Noach is simply a messenger, he cannot veil the curiosity in his face. Everything stops for a split second, but Santana finds herself scrabbling to her feet, snatching up her medicine horn and grabbing her staff from where it rests against the wall. Samuel reaches for her but she kicks him away angrily. "He needs not to worry his pretty face over such things." She says with a cruel sneer, eyes flashing. Her tone is of shattered glass, broken apart and deadly sharp, scattered about the room. "It would do him no good to think. Any more and that wound might start oozing brain matter, if there is any left. Somehow I doubt it."

Still, despite her biting words, the panic inside of her is mounting. The walls are suddenly too close to where she can smell the brine and the musk upon them, Finngeirr's presence hulking and intimidating. Their eyes demand answers she is not willing to give, and they never learn to take no as a reply. "Where are you going?" he calls out, and she can feel their eyes upon her back.

"Somewhere." And with that, she is gone. They are left in nothing but darkness.

* * *

><p>"You seem tense." Styrr observes, stepping out from the underbrush. Santana barely flinches anymore - so used to his form moving about, slipping like smoke through her own parted fingers. With him he brings the quiet dark and the mournful howling of the wind, but she is grateful for the eclipse of the sun. It does nothing more than hurt her eyes.<p>

"What an astute observation." She comments dryly, tearing up some of the grass from the bank. This place has become her sanctuary. Sometimes she watches the sinewy forms of the water-children flit around amongst the weeds and coax her forwards with their murky marble eyes, vanishing in mysterious swirls of sand whenever she tosses a rock into their depths. "Have you solved life's mysteries with such statements?"

Santana holds little patience for his games, but he has learned how to worm himself into the crevice between her bone and her blood as a craving unable to be quelled. She desires intelligent conversation - surely he can give her that - but in return the seeds of his thoughts continue to grow.

"What need have I for life's mysteries, priestess, when those of the dead are so much more fascinating?" His palm opens and a sliver of shadow slides its way into the cloudy deep, staining the grass as it goes. They watch as it pulls a frog from its resting place, croaking and flailing, slipping in through its open mouth. It shudders once, twice; limbs jerking at odd angles before going still. Santana feels the breath of life escape it as it sighs a final time. She frowns.

"What curiosities could death bring? It is much less diverse than the living."

He smiles then, thin and cruel, as the corpse jerks once upon the bank. Its skin has withered and turned black in the short moments of repose, but it nonetheless rises itself upon Styrr's urging, a puppet upon mismatched strings. Santana watches with wide eyes as it croaks feebly and hops around, tripping over itself and the joints that seem to fail beneath it.

"Life is finite. It brings moments of strength and of wisdom, yes. But death... death is absolute. It takes all eventually and, unless intervened directly, never lets them go."

"You do not believe in rebirth?"

"Oh, I do. I know that Ataecina ushers you into a cycle and that she will, by her power, give you once more the Breath you require. But she pulls you from its embrace as you cannot defy it on your own. It is all powerful, all knowing. If you are reborn you are weak, but... if you can avoid death, you are beyond touch."

She has the distinct feeling they no longer talk simply about the cycle. "And you?"

His fingers flicker and the frog turns to him with sightless eyes. "My Master is one of those who can deny it, and grants this gift, as per His will, to me. Death will find me one day, but so long as my purpose remains, so do I." The ropes of shadow attaching him to his puppet fade and whisper out of existence - he frowns when the body falls over and seizes helplessly and away from his control. Muttering curses under his breath he clenches his fist quickly; knuckles whiten and there is the distinct sound of a fleshy _pop_ like bursting a bag filled with air. The frog explodes into a plethora of blood and entrails, strewn out over the grasses and sickly with bile. Santana blanches.

"W-what is your purpose, then?"

This time his smile is wry, twisting his lips into something resembling a smirk.

"You will learn this in due time. For now, we have our respective talents to understand." The scroll wavers in her pocket and her hands go automatically to grasp it. Truth be told, she has not yet reopened it for fear of what she could find. Every second with the infernal artifact tugs her deeper into her own dreams, saturating her mind and chilling her blood, but she cannot bear to part with it. When she attempted to remove it from her robes and lay it under her bed, she was seized with the most intense bout of panic she's ever had. She had quickly snatched it back up and shoved it into her pockets before Brittany could watch her with those knowing eyes.

Her fingers wind in the tassels, and next she knows it is laid across her lap in a flurry of old must and crinkled parchment. The words still elude her eyes, shifting and whispering, sliding across the page into unknown symbols and incomprehensible scrawl. A sharp throb starts itself up in the depths of her skull and she looks angrily to Styrr; his face is impossible to read but his eyes are unusually bright. He watches her instead of the surface.

"It refuses to work for me. Can you not take it back?"

The man rolls his eyes and fixes her with a searching gaze. "It refuses to work because you do not know what to do with it. I have already told you, it requires something of a strong will to manifest."

Mami had always told her she was as stubborn as anything she's ever seen, but she doubts this is what he means.

"What do you desire, priestess?"

Santana's eyes close. Images crawl over her skin and connect her to the scroll - the tassels become hair and the parchment flesh. Spearmint tickles her nose and slips in through her teeth. Her mouth drops open as invisible fingers pluck at the nape of her neck; she could recognize those scars as well as her own. Blue flashes, bright as the summer sky.

Her vision returns when she snaps open her lids, throwing the cursed thing far away from her. Styrr carefully retrieves it, studying her with a secret smile and twitching hands. "I... that is not..."

"The scroll can grant many things, Santana, but that is not one of them." At her glare he drops the topic, but shrugs, slipping the scroll into the depths of her robe. "I believe you should grant her a visit."

"To Brittany? Why? That meant nothing! I refuse to-"

"To the mother, priestess. Perhaps she can shed some light on your predicaments."

Embarrassed by her outburst, Santana nods stiffly and gathers herself upwards, stumbling up the bank with tightly clenched hands. Styrr watches her go, curiously, before shaking his head and turning back to the waves, brushing his hand over the desecrated corpse of the broken frog. Ever so slowly it knits itself back together, entrails coiling and muscles stringing until it sits upon the bank, lifeless but intact. It comes. Eventually he will master the dead.

_It has begun, then._

A shuddering sigh goes through him, and he tilts his head upwards at the icy winds that whisper past his jaw. _Master?_

_ Be patient. Watch her. She changes, even now._

Up on the streets, Santana shivers at the shadow that has suddenly fallen over the sun. She glances upwards warily at the sole cloud that blocks its rays. _Magic,_ she deduces, but carries on her way.

People avoid her even now. Words of her outburst have stretched and strengthened as it travelled across the town, until it was nothing of its original truth. Those not native to this place still smile and bow as she passes by, or perhaps cross themselves and mutter prayer, but others simply widen their berth. Not that she minds terribly. At times she misses Sandalio's presence by her side; he cowers at Styrr's shadow and instead flees to the comforting warmth Brittany has to offer, far away from dark magics and secret scrolls.

She scowls. What trickery does it play? She wants none of the things it has offered her, of smiles and sleep-warmed skin and slips of tongue. It is absurd.

(She pointedly avoids how her bones shudder at the mention.)

Beside her, a man struggles with the lid of a box. A mere whisper of her thought, and she smiles at how the closed crate before her opens without touch. Her mastery has improved by leaps and bounds, and she often finds herself absently twining the white power with blue, curling between her fingers and down the curve of her ribs. They watch as she wills things into being that, by rational thought, cannot be; a wispy animal, a wrong-running stream, trees bending towards her form. Always of life - she takes the song of the elements and adds her own voice to it in order to alter the sound. Sometimes she wonders if battle has its own song. It could, with all the weapons clashing and people screaming and places burning. A song of death and decay, but with its own music regardless.

Recently, she dreams of war. She sails above the battlefields thick with blood, swooping down over the dying soldiers, raining her blessing even as they writhe in agony over their mortal wounds. She believes some of them things from the past - once she saw Brittany's unmistakable form, shorter and holding the fragility of youth but still undoubtedly _her_; she supported a whimpering boy as she screamed out for aid. The scimitar, still firmly planted in his leg, shivered whenever she would drag him further from the battlefield. She knows without asking who he was.

Styrr had once forgotten himself and gazed out over the ocean, playing an invisible instrument. "They come." It was said as an inevitable conclusion to an end that has just begun. Some part of her wishes not to be here when the tide finally breaks, but she has slowly started to understand this place as _home_. The sandy dunes of Iberia become little more than a memory. She hummed her agreement and they watched as the sun sunk into oblivion.

Perhaps it is wrong, but she is glad to have him on her side when the battle hits. He is strong, stronger than he has shown. It coils within him like another skin.

She enters the longhouse with practiced ease and weaves her way through the servants that wind their way across the floor. Santana smiles at Mikhail delivering goods to the kitchen, and nods at Betar absently listening to a messenger. The other, true jarl has fallen deathly ill - in his absence Betar has been given power. She thinks it about time, as he has always been the true leader of this place. When she makes to enter the servant's quarters, she bumps into a unmoving body. Santana stumbles backwards before a pair of slender hands catch her. Even without looking she knows those muscles covered by fairest skin.

Brittany looks down at her with concern, planting her upright before she falls. The conflicted expression on her face vanishes at the sight of Santana, and the subtle nuances of her nervousness replace it; hunched shoulders and messy hair. It unnerves her how easy it is to read her companion at times. "Sorry," she mutters, even though she has no need, "are you hurt?" Santana has the distinct wish to soothe her worries, before remembrance of their week filters in.

"Fine." She says coolly, stepping out of her range. "Why you here?"

Brittany glances back at the servant's rooms - that _thing _flashes over her face again, scared and hesitant - before returning her gaze to Santana. "No reason."

_She lies._

Santana raises one unimpressed eyebrow, but Brittany doesn't take the bait, instead shuffling to the side. She gestures forward, opening her mouth once or twice but shutting it as quickly with a shake of her head. Santana, for all her ire, is never uninterested in what Brittany has to say. "Santana... I... it was an accident. Can you not take me at my word?"

Santana's face hardens - Brittany notices, and her own falls. "Why? Still hurt."

One long hand rakes itself across blonde hair. Brittany's braid is loose and bits have fallen out to frame her face in waves. She seems the picture of dishevelled, but it takes nothing away from her odd look of unconventional beauty. "I apologized to you! What more do you ask of me? I cannot heal her wounds, nor turn back time. Tell me what I must do and I will do it... just... I want this to stop. It hurts without you around."

Santana looks away at the sincerity she finds within her gaze. Too much and it turns her to stone, much like a gorgon. "Not me, Brittany."

Her head tilts in confusion. Santana, not for the first time, curses the northern language. "Not me you say sorry."

Her expression clears in realization and she shakes her head. _She is scared_, Santana realizes. _But of what?_

"I... I..." Instead of explaining herself, Brittany flees. But not before turning around and fixing Santana with perhaps the saddest gaze she's ever seen. "I miss you."

She is gone, but Santana still replies.

"As do I."

(Later, as she finishes tending to the sick and injured she will pull forth the scroll that whispers. Guided by the remembrance of the wound that will never heal, the undecipherable swirls will begin to take shape, forming together to create words with missing letters that make no sense as of yet.

But they will.)

* * *

><p><strong>August 2<strong>**nd****, 912**

"Hold still." Horn between her teeth, Santana teases the hair that has clumped with blood and pulls it from the gash, pressing her thumb to the pieces that break off and begin to bleed. Samuel tries hard not to flinch, and instead sits gamely upon the hard dirt floor, wrists bruised from the clamps that had been pressed much too tightly against him. Earlier, Santana noticed that he understood what she said, but simply could not respond. Fitting - he doesn't run the risk of saying something idiotic and ruining her mood.

She checks all around him, telling him to dunk his swollen limbs in the sea and to wash his wounds with the water (carefully, she knows it stings) when they allow him outside from his temporary prison. Once, she brought a basin of lukewarm water and tallow to him, simply raising an eyebrow at his modesty, watching him with impartial eyes as he stripped down and stepped into the bath. It should worry her, how neutral she is to the male form, but priestesses are not known for taking a mate. It is possible, but their service is primarily to Ataecina.

"You were quite a spectacular failure on the battlefield," she muses as she picks up his right hand. Two of the fingers are large and stiff, while the wrist is an angry red. Samuel scoffs, but a smile plays on his broken lips. "Perhaps you would have fared better if Brittany taught you a few things she knows."

There she goes again. It's like the other girl slips into her thoughts without her knowledge. Much like a snake.

Or Styrr.

Her jaw tightens and she ignores the babble that spills forth from his mouth. She knows Brittany visits him too; she sees her depart as she arrives. What she could hope to gain is questionable at best, for it seems he has no affinity for the northern tongue. Still, she has no jurisdiction over the slaves, and perhaps it will be good for her - for him, surely, it is pleasant to receive as much company in his final days as possible.

A cloud passes over her face and he must notice for he nudges her softly out of her reverie. Santana blinks and looks over at him - in an effort to derail her, he points to the hidden vellum in her pocket with an obvious question. The parchment peeks from her robes and she tugs it out carefully, laying it on the ground with utmost care. His eyes are inquisitive as he rakes over the tassels and ancient vellum, fingers reaching out before she snatches it away. "It would be best if you left your hands clean of this." She sighs quietly, placing it at her side.

"I seem to be saying that to many people recently, you know. There is another boy here who looks almost exactly like you. Same skin, same long hair, same ridiculous smile, and definitely same unquenchable curiosity." Samuel asks something and she shrugs. "I care for him deeply, if that is what you ask. He has a mother who is gravely injured. I tend to her when I can, but the touch of the Goddess only goes so far."

She scrutinizes him closely.

"Are you certain you are not of northern descent? It is disturbing how alike you look."

Samuel laughs and shakes his head. His hands go out to her but he recoils before he reaches her - when he retreats she spies the angry wounds and snatches his wrists (gingerly) to bring them forward. Both of his fists clench (he whimpers as the broken fingers contort in ways unpleasant) before relaxing, and red drizzles down into the dirt.

"How did you-" The blood brings with it a sweet, flowering smell. Santana furrows her brow and looks over at him before bringing her touch to the wound and gathering the essence upon her skin. Despite his noises of protest, she puts her fingers in her mouth and frowns as the taste of wine meets her senses.

They stare at each other for a quiet moment. His feet suffer the same fate. "It seems that I am not the only one touched here, am I?" She says quietly, and he shrugs before the wounds stop bleeding once again and simply... close. There is no other word for it. The flesh simply draws together and sews shut with an invisible thread. Santana blinks and flips his palms over repeatedly in hopes of finding the reason for such a trick.

_Not all things are able to be explained, priestess._

She should know better than that. Her life has been nothing but magic and unreasonable circumstance. It would be so much simpler if she held the ability for regeneration like Samuel appears to do. Santana stretches out upon the ground with a sigh and is about to close her eyes when Samuel's hushed, frantic voice meets her ears. One eye cracks open and rolls to him where he stares fixedly into the dirt with a stunned expression.

When the girl gets up, she finds the scroll has unravelled itself. Upon it, newly written words pulsate and hiss, sliding around the page now able to be read. It brings upon her a deep sense of dread, but she leans over regardless.

Her fingers touch the letters and a voice invades her head.

_Give me your hand and I will give you my kiss._

_ And together we will stand on the brink of abyss. _

Eyes meet. Santana silently rolls up the parchment and walks away on unsteady feet.

* * *

><p>Brittany finds him where Santana left him, staring into the dirt. She brings dried deer meat for his hunger and rawhide wrapping for his wounds. She smiles despite herself at the neat tending to the gash upon his temple and the splint that now settles his two fingers.<p>

"Santana found you, hm?" The warrior doesn't catch the way his eyes snap up, or the instinctive flickering towards the ground where the parchment lay a few minutes ago. She lays her spear down on the ground and instead rummages around in her pack, procuring fresh clothes to replace the scraps he now wears; the linen is punched through with holes and still hosts his blood from the battle upon the shores of Britannia, the laces worn and broken upon his collar. Samuel holds the strange tunics of the north in his hands and the long belt that wraps more than twice around his narrow waist. Brittany laughs. "You put it around you, silly boy. It does no good to stare at it."

She urges him up and yanks the dirtied clothes up over his head, smirking when he tries to puff out his chest and strain his muscles. Living around men and their inflated sense of self-worth all her life has dulled her to their forms, for the harder they try the less attractive they appear to be. Brittany giggles when he runs out of air and his body relaxes in one massive huff. "Better, yes?" She pats his cheek mockingly and tugs at his breeches where they pool at his feet in a rush of fabric.

The girl wrinkles her nose. "Have they not let you change?" Judging from the smell, she already knows the answer.

"Go on, step into these." She hands him his new leggings and wrestles the shirt up over his head where he pops through the neckline in a mess of dishevelled hair. Unable to do two things at once, he flails as he gets tangled in the clothing - she laughs but it quickly turns into a shriek as he grabs her for balance and they both end up tumbling over in a blond, convoluted mess. Brittany drapes herself on top of him to cushion the blow and he grumbles out a wheezing breath when she falls. If she didn't know better, she would imagine he said something along the lines of, "Heavier than you look".

They stare at each other for a moment; Brittany perches herself up on her elbows and watches his eyes flit every which way, hands hovering for a moment in the air before carefully coming to rest on her slim hips. She finds his blush and his concern both quite adorable.

(As a future man of the cloth, Samuel has never touched a woman in this way. He marvels at the muscles that shift under his fingers and the long hair that tickles his skin. Though his thoughts are sinful, he smiles back at her when she beams, eyes crinkling and turning into pools of blue.)

"Bretagne!" A voice calls from further down the hallway. They both tilt their heads in time to see a foot and a cane emerge into the doorway, followed by thick shoulders and a head of brown hair. Anvindr appears in the room, only to stop and stare at the two adolescents, wound so closely together, laid out on the floor. "What are you-" Brittany scrambles up and carefully hauls Samuel with her; he manages to thread his arms through the cloth successfully this time and sheepishly ties taut the belt around his waist. The glare from the smaller boy wants to make him shrink into his non-existent boots.

"Pay it no heed," Brittany offers with a frown marring her face, "we simply fell. What are you doing here?" They had barely talked since Santana ran what seems like years ago - her ire and disappointment still runs hot, but his long-standing anger refuses to let him apologize. He shuffles the best he can in discomfort, wincing at the pain in his leg.

The blacksmith is across town from Betar's longhouse.

Despite their rocky standing she knows how difficult it is for him, and bids him to sit down upon one of the beds. He eyes Samuel warily, but she shushes him and gently pushes him to the far corner of the room. "He does not understand us. Why have you made the journey here?"

Anvindr hooks his cane over the bedpost and bites his lip, picking at the fabric of his breeches. Despite the prisoner's eyes boring into the side of his head, he will accomplish what he set out to do. His parents did not raise a coward. "I miss you." He blurts out suddenly, looking up into her eyes. Brittany's brows raise in surprise but she remains silent, seeing that he has more to say. "You know of my past, and that Santana and I will never be close to friends, but... I agree that I was out of line. What they were to do was abhorrent, and I am glad she could defend herself."

Brittany perches beside him and stares with incredulity. He is admitting his faults? She can count on one hand the times he has apologized to her. He continues, "I... I will try to be civil if you agree to forgive me and put this in the past. I want us to be friends again."

Does she take him at his word? Though unassuming, she has known him to be a snake with his actions as well as his thoughts, slipping through like mist. But all throughout their childhood she has given him the benefit of the doubt, and he has never once abused that privilege. A slow smile blooms upon her lips and she nods, taking one hand of his in hers.

"I will, upon one condition."

Anvindr watches her earnestly. "Of course."

"If you cannot be friendly with Santana, you will be friendly with Samuel."

The two boys lock eyes and Samuel attempts a smile. Anvindr frowns and looks pleadingly at Brittany, but she stays firm. "Must I? Your father will call for his death in a few days, surely it makes no difference."

Mistake. Her face darkens angrily and he almost flinches back at the thundercloud that crawls itself over her aura, eyes dampening to the grey before the storm. It has been easy - too easy - to forget Samuel's fate, and the closer the day comes, the harder she works to push it from her mind. With only one conceivable way to make her lighten up, Anvindr hauls himself to his feet and hobbles over to the foreigner. Upon closer inspection it seems he could be related to the girl, with the same wheat-blond hair and pale, sun-burnt skin. He offers the hand not clutching his cane.

"My name is Anvindr." He attempts a smile that surprisingly comes out genuine.

Brittany laughs at his face when Samuel instead sweeps him into a massive, inescapable hug.

* * *

><p><strong>August 3<strong>**rd**** - 5****th****, 912**

Their bonds to him thicken even as others weaken. Those around him are always running on borrowed time as they switch watches like sentinels, flitting around each other but never colliding. He grows on them as if he was never absent in their lives - Noach finds it his duty to whisper to him in conspiring tones, pointing out daily life in the village and letting him know the secrets they keep. Samuel, for all his travels, never truly had friends of his own age; his life and love was the Church and his father. Nothing else was of importance until now, and sometimes he finds himself wondering, in the dead of night, what he had been missing for eighteen years.

Sometimes there is another presence. Thick, like oil that slides down his tongue and paralyzes him. He catches the barest glimpse of icy eyes and a dark aura. The stranger brings with him the whisper of a million voices, overlapping and fighting for dominance, filling his mind with horrible things that are barely burned away with the all-encompassing Light of his Lord. He tries to say these things in ways others can understand; Brittany does not comprehend his babble but is sympathetic regardless - she brings Santana, who listens through Noach. Her face grows angry for a moment before she slides away and returns hours later.

The stranger does not visit him again.

As the day of his death grows closer andthe retaliation of the newly appointed jarl's daughter turns to be less and less effective in halting her father, Santana sits down and weaves various strands of rawhide into bracelets. Each are decked with a charm and glisten softly in the half-shadow, and she blesses each and every one until his arms and legs are covered in them, clinking together whenever he deigns to move. They give him a sort of comfort absent of her own touch, like she is with him long after she leaves.

Yet he notices that Brittany and Santana are never together. Samuel often dreams of them; sometimes separate, sometimes together. He dreams of Santana's blue power and the strength it gives, as her voice calls with the fortitude of mountains, rippling across the ocean waves as a beacon in the wretched months to come. He dreams of Brittany and the sinuous force hidden beneath every one of her graceful movements, how her hair will become stained with blood not of her own. Once he even dreamt of her between the threadbare sheets of his bed, naked and opened by his hand to her glistening quick, as her bones arched and bent against his own body. He tasted her lips and the sweetness of her breath - the pleasurable pain as her fingers sunk into the muscles of his back.

When he woke, he knelt for hours and prayed for his sins. (Others may not know it, but he believes with the entirety of his heart that Brittany and Santana are made for each other alone.)

His visions are most potent when they appear together. Simple things that go without mention in the real world. Santana studying from a scroll (not that cursed one she brings around with nervous eyes and flighty fingers) while Brittany's head perches in her lap; sparring together with staff and spear; creating ghostly butterflies out of nothing but thin air. Always he sees the smile on their faces, the one they create when thinking of the other before they remember they cannot.

Samuel asks her one day. Well, truly, he asks Noach and expects him to speak to the priestess. He is no longer nervous of Santana and her temper, for she is of those who hide behind walls in order to avoid scrutiny of the wounded creature behind it. Noach nudges her and her eyes lazily slide over to them, winding her studies away and pushing them into the pocket of her robes.

(It feels like the stranger does, all cold souls and forbidden knowledge, but he wishes not to say anything. In truth, he doesn't know what he _should_ say.)

"What?" She mutters distractedly, squinting against the harsh sunlight that pours in through the small window.

"He wants to know why Bretagne seems so sad when she talks about you."

Santana, despite her resistance, cannot mask her surprise. "She speaks of me?"

"Oh yes, constantly. It is the only thing she focuses on for any length of time, though it seemed to make her rather remorseful and dark."

Noach, too, notices the longing looks and lingering attempts at touch. He is so close to asking Santana, but the frigidity in her eyes whenever the other girl is brought up keeps him away and fearing for his manhood. It seems Samuel has no such qualms.

Such bravery comes to the doomed.

Her lips curl to form the beginnings of a sneer. "She is sad because she refuses to own up to past sins, and instead lies about them in hopes she would keep me in the shadow. It is her you should be asking, not me."

Samuel seems to think this over but floats away from himself and absently toys with the cross around his neck and hums a shallow tune as he does. He has a pleasant voice, deep but light. She tries not to think how soon it will be silenced. Then he looks at her, and though he speaks in Noach's stolen voice it comes still straight from him.

"We all deserve redemption, priestess. Why would she be any different?"

Santana grits her teeth and taps her fingers agitatedly upon her knee. In all honestly, she asks herself this same thing in the dead of night, when Brittany still crawls over to check on her after fevered dreams, only to be pushed away with biting words and a cold rebuff. But every remembrance of given trust in her hometown ends with it broken. Santana no longer knows how to trust because perhaps she never _did_ - the people there were kind, but not hers, their troubles so distant from her own. Brittany was the first to be so close, and her betrayal - Santana refuses to call it anything but - stings more than any other.

"It would be difficult to take away what she has done, Samuel. I am not one who is able to give such kind absolution."

(The scroll burns in the pockets of her robes.)

* * *

><p><strong>August 7th, 912<strong>

Somehow, it has been a week since the ship sailed into port. Brittany raised such a massive fight with her father over Samuel that his inevitable sacrifice was delayed for a few days. Everyone throughout the village could hear their voices; a deep, booming one trying to keep peace, and a lighter, shrill one shouting obscenities that could make a sailor pale. This earned her a smile and a quiet _thank you_ from Santana, but it wasn't nearly enough.

The villagers grow wary the longer Samuel stays alive, fearing revenge from the south seas. Ripples go through the crowd whenever he's escorted places, whispered voices, nervous eyes. Some say he has been marked and Odin will not accept his sacrifice - doomed to wander forever as lost in Midguard as a phantom. Anvindr spends his time toiling at the forge in the wake of quiet upheaval, shaping weapons and armour from nothing, sweat rolling down his face while keeping Bretagne silent company. In the large absence the priestess has made in her life, she finds herself here more and more often, like she used to be.

It could be under better circumstances, but it pleases him.

"Still at odds with your father?" He grunts out as his hammer thwacks against the burning metal and it rings out through the room. Brittany studies the strong muscles in his arms and the bulk of his shoulders curiously, but nods with a bitter sigh.

"He listens to nothing I say. The king's son comes to watch, so he refuses to back down."

Anvindr stops in surprise, wiping sweat from his brow. "His kin? Truly?"

"It seems that way."

Haraldr Hárfagri is the first united king that Nor Veg could attest to having. Formerly scattered kingdoms were pulled together almost forty years ago after his stunning victory in Hafrsfjord. Though he is titled ruler, his sons oversee many of the towns - one of his kindest offspring, Bjorn Farmann, watches over Vestfold, the county in which Kaupang falls. His father was originally from these lands, and tries with great care to appease the people. A sensible, understanding man, the villagers have no doubt he will make a good ruler.

"I wonder why he makes the trip down from Sæheimr with the tensions so high between him and his brother?"

Haraldr's favourite son, Eirik, has been pushing for the throne. As his father gets older, it is more and more obvious that he yearns for it, and will undoubtedly put up a fight if it does not fall into his hands. Though a magnificent warrior, he is brash and unkind - people fear what will happen under his jurisdiction.

"To ease us, I assume. There have been whisperings of a massing army to the south like Styrr has warned... Harald and his nephew, William, sweep across the countries and leave nothing but blood in their wake. We have no force like they do, and some are worried we cannot face them if they choose to appear in Kaupang."

Anvindr scoffs, and his next strike upon the anvil is harsher than anticipated. "We fight better than any of those soft _kamphundr! _Their easy food and travelling animals make them weak in body and in mind. If they so choose to pledge themselves to a nameless god, they will die for him too."

Earlier she would have agreed, but now, Brittany isn't so sure. She watches Samuel; how his head tilts up to the silent sounds, listening with something akin to reverence in his eyes before his wits come back to him. Even if one is capable of producing such pain, surely if He is able to strike worship in so many people, then He is not as baseless as some make Him seem.

She agrees with the first part of his assessment, however. From what has been said, the bulk of Harald's army is comprised of cavalry; armoured men sweeping by on horses, cutting down other warriors with devastating swiftness. But in Nor Veg the hills are steep and uneven and provide poor footholds for hooved creatures. Many only use the beasts here for transport, sticking to the roads, which is a danger all of its own. Retreating up on the hills and raining down arrows - no matter how cowardly the act appears - would be a painful defeat for the mounted soldiers. Kaupang sits on the water's edge - they would have to load up all of the animals, sail around north, dismount, then charge back to the town without the value of surprise. A foolish choice. But Harald is cunning, and undoubtedly knows something the vikings do not.

"But there are so many. I heard they act like the berserk do, yelling and growling and even taking our heads as proof of their deeds."

He wrinkles his nose in distaste and sets aside the axe that gleams bright in the shadow of the room. "If it comes to that, we can defeat them. Our people are strong. Do you have such little faith?"

His voice is gentle and she smiles despite herself at the re-emergence of the boy she used to know so many years ago. She's missed him terribly. "No, not at all. I simply worry. Kaupang is a trading town, not a stronghold. We have many other nationalities that might take poorly of being caught in the crossfire." Brittany's thoughts flash to Santana without her meaning to, sandy skin and onyx eyes. Would she stand and fight?

"Vestfold is a favourite of the king. If we were in danger, he would undoubtedly aid us."

The truth eases her worries, and she settles back into her chair, handing him the tongs when he makes to get up for them. Anvindr averts his eyes in shame, but Brittany simply shakes her head and pats his hand, gesturing for him to go on. They are silent for precious minutes with nothing but the clang of his hammer and the vicious heat of the flames. After a moment she groans and tugs at her tunic. "How do you stay here all day? The fire burns me!"

His smile is more of a grimace from exertion, but it is genuine. "You get used to it, Bretagne."

"Well," she grumbles, and her voice is muffled, "I, for one, do not believe in sweating unless it comes from the sun. What else would we use it for?"

Next thing he knows her shirt is discarded on the straw floor beneath her and she sighs in contentment, reclining back in her seat and stretching her arms backwards. Anvindr gapes and misses his swing - the hammer rings dully upon the solid anvil and flies from his grasp. Sweat trickles down the valley between her breasts, and her pale skin is flushed from the warmth, creeping down her collarbone and spreading out over her shoulders.

The last time he had seen her body was over six years ago, when they were simply children. Even then she had the beginnings of beauty - long legs and faintly developing breasts and a fine but sturdy bone structure. She's grown into and beyond what she was capable of in these recent years, and he shifts uncomfortably in his seat, focusing more on the constant pain in his leg than the new, throbbing discomfort around his hips. It's been a long time since he hasn't been so wrapped up in himself that he can taste arousal again, but being _her_, it only grows more unattainable. He sees the way she looks at the foreigner.

(Deep in his mind, the seedling of an idea starts pulsating to the tune of his limp.)

"Bretagne, w-what are-"

She laughs; clear as bells and completely oblivious. "The heat in here is ridiculous. Come now, Vin, surely it must bother you as much as me?" She stretches her arms further and her back arches gracefully - his mouth goes dry and he stares shamelessly at her chest.

That is how Santana finds them.

"Britta- _what?_" The priestess rubs her eyes furiously but the imprint is still burned into her memory. Blonde hair and pale skin and white scars mix together into a confusing medley that brings mist to her mind and tingles to her flesh. Brittany squeaks and nearly falls off her seat, whipping around to face her friend with what could be considered an embarrassed blush, but it's well known Brittany is far too shameless for that. Santana glares daggers at the only boy who responds in kind, guilt at being caught overpowered by the mutual distaste shared between the two.

Anvindr knows she infringes on his property, and Santana knows... what? Brittany is not her territory, but she dislikes the way he stares at her like she is the saviour to all of his problems. He is nothing but a bitter adolescent with shattered dreams and an attitude to match. He will _never _be good enough for her. (Not like she would be, one day.)

"Ah... Santana?" Brittany ventures cautiously, holding her damp shirt up to her breasts. Nudity offends the Iberian for some reason, and while she can't grasp it, she will hold true to her wishes. Santana swings her head around like Sandalio at the prospect of a meal - for a moment her eyes hungrily roam over her exposed torso before coming back to herself and hiding her blush under her natural tan.

"Betar wants." She says shortly in explanation. Her thumb jerks behind her, out into the crowded street. "Crown?"

Santana had been taken rather rudely from her studies by a messenger. After snapping at him in garbled Norse she had grudgingly made her way down to go speak to the jarl. It does no good to upset noblemen, even as her brain throbs with all the countless confusing symbols inside the scroll tucked neatly against her thigh. Even now she feels its power seething anxiously like a startled stallion, calling softly to her in a language she does not yet comprehend. Every vestige of her knowledge and want goes into freeing Samuel, but it offers no secrets. Her frustration mounts with every spike of pain to her temples.

"Father?" Brittany scratches the back of her neck in confusion, unknowingly letting the shirt droop and giving two pairs of eyes a show. What would he be sending for now? Surely he doesn't expect her to be present for the event. With a shrug she pulls the tunic back over her head and re-cinches the belt, completely unaware of the tension going on around her. Once sure that her weapons are all securely back in place, she turns and plants a kiss of Anvindr's cheek - hesitating a moment, she shoots a tentative smile at Santana before disappearing out the door.

Her mind wanders. A war? The country has never seen such an organized battle together. Would it even hold? Could it, riddled by reports of trolls and elusive centaurs emerging and strange shambling dead that fall to pieces before they can even be struck? Some believe them to be _draugar_ - walking corpses - but those are supposed to be demons, so strong a warrior of greatest caliber would lose in a test of strength. These mockeries do nothing more than frighten with their moan of dry vellum and empty hearts. Nor Veg is on the precipice of something huge - everyone feels it in the air, pressing down upon them. People conduct their foreign trades with more urgency now, and boats arrive less frequently. Camps are being set encroaching Taunmark... whispers of a sea of canvas and the air thick with metal comes across the waters to turn themselves into false ideas that sit wrong in the minds of men. She refuses to think how many would surrender in return for safety, to sacrifice their way of life for a god that, she has seen, does nothing more than hurt.

Brittany shoulders into the longhouse and stiffly kneels before her father for a moment, materializing back up with a straight back and clear eyes. "You have need of me?" She tries her best to ignore the shadowed corridor leading to the servant's rooms.

Betar rubs his hand over his elaborate beard wearily. His daughter can be the most stubborn woman on the face of the planet if she so insists upon it, and it seems like today is going to be one of those days. Her skin is flushed like she had been again visiting the forge.

He does nor have anything against Anvindr, but worries at where his eyes wander. He is no longer fit for her, without the mobility stolen away from him most cruelly.

"Bjorn Farmann, beloved son of the king, rides this way for the event come the morrow. I ask you to be his guide when he arrives, and tend to him as you would his father."

_So it is tomorrow, then._ Brittany bites her lower lip against the sudden onslaught of helpless tears, but dips her head regardless and draws in one shaking breath. She will not let them see her despair, not when they so call for Samuel's pure blood. "I will show him the best Kaupang has to offer."

Betar offers a sad smile and reclines on his seat in thanks. "That is all I ask, daughter. You may leave. There is much to do before his arrival."

Hours pass upon her mindless preparations until she finds herself sitting crossed upon the dirt floor that has quickly become her second home. Samuel watches her red eyes and _knows,_ as he understands many things, that it is soon. She winds her fingers through his and says little, simply letting out a shuddering sigh and cursing the superstitions of her people. He wants to ask her so many things; of life outside of these walls, and her childhood, and of Anvindr; the red haired woman that visits him sometimes, and the final glimpse of the stranger and his shock of white-blond hair. Their language barrier is firmly intact, but like all the others, he can read her through the angles of her body and draws her closer in silent comfort.

The moon is high in the sky by the time two figures slip into their gathering. Noach takes one look at her face and sucks anxiously on his teeth, mumbling into Santana's ear before stepping back. The priestess steps forward, but for the first time Brittany refuses to back down, simply looking upwards - the light catches her eyes to make them glow damp, and something in Santana breaks. She kneels down instead and clasps Samuel's other hand with hers and doesn't let go. Noach stands guardian as she begins to mutter things under her breath that fill the room with invisible presence.

"I will be with you at the end." She says sometime after their arrival, brushing her thumb upon the closed wound of his hand. "I do not believe they have an active priest here to give you your own blessing." She speaks like a harp would, all high notes and sad strings with an echo on the end. Each movement of the moon brings him closer to the end, but Samuel finds himself content.

Eventually Brittany has to leave once the sun begins to break its way over the horizon. She gingerly pulls herself from his shoulder and bites her lips, framing his head between her palms and stroking his cheekbones with her thumbs. Her skin is flushed with sorrow and her breath stutters with tears that slip down like little streams to drop against the warmth of his collarbone.

It isn't fair. None of it is, but just looking into his face that will be cold and blue this time tomorrow fills her with something unidentifiable. It starts inside her chest, and spreads until it devours her whole and she sobs, sliding her hands around his neck and pressing her face into the uninjured side of his head. She speaks in regrets that Santana does her best to translate, but her own breath leaves her as Brittany continues to cry.

He doesn't try and say it will be fine, because it won't. Sometimes he wishes his Lord would give him just that _one more day_, but he has already overstayed his welcome. "Forget me not," he sighs into her skin, running one hand down her back, "and be brave when it comes. You have done more than you know for me."

Brittany reclines back a bit only to lean forward and brush her lips against his. In her he tastes salt and sadness and the pleasant bite of her breath like within his dreams. For the longest time she has communicated affection with her body and he smiles in comprehension, drawing back once she begins to murmur against his mouth.

Words fill him to bursting and Santana joins in with her until their voices overlap; she injects her magic into the loops, and he knows a prayer when he hears one (his own life has been nothing but). Brittany wishes him swift travel to Asgard and may his regrets be few, and Santana in turn bids him easy journey to the beyond. Their care is what keeps him smiling through the night, even when she vanishes for the very last time.

* * *

><p><strong>August 8th, 912<strong>

It is a glorious affair. Banners run and drums bang and mead flows as the prince rides into town upon a magnificent black steed, his blinding hair of golden wheat bound into intricate braids that run down the strength of his broad back. Through a short beard his mouth twists wryly into a half-grin; he waves and talks with the people surrounding him, accepting offers of alcohol from what seems to be kingdoms over. All have gathered to see him perform the sacrifice that will end the pain upon the winds and breeze in good fortune from the shadows of their past.

None but Bjorn and Styrr know of the swelling numbers and the first faint trumpets of war.

One muscled arm raises in salute and the response from the crowd is almost deafening as they clog the street with their celebrations. He is a beacon with his shining armour and sharpened weapons, deep-diving eyes twinkling and his clothes fitted. Even Brittany finds herself in rapture before she remembers why he is here, and the thought keeps her from being swept away in the festivities the crowds bring.

"People of Kaupang!" booms his voice, and it settles high into the rafters and lingers in the sky. The rumble from his chest quiets all else until it is nothing but his echo greeting the gods, "And of beyond! I welcome you here in Vestfold to what promises to be an eventful day!" They return his salutations and he smiles fully then at their enthusiasm, his massive bulk seeming to eclipse the sun from his vantage point. His father did not name him of the apex predator for nothing - he wears his brother's furs as a symbol of his pride and lets the priests use its blood to bless his spirit both in battle and in rest. Even though the heat is merciless, and causes sweat to turn his hair a darker gold, he remains steadfast and welcoming through his discomfort. "And let me thank Betar Silver-Spear for his hospitality, and his daughter Bretagne for accommodating me so gracefully."

Brittany smiles half-heartedly; from here she can see the wooden stage from where Samuel will be killed, and it destroys any semblance of joy she could have. It will be soon - the crowd grows restless. "We have feasted and we have fought. Now, let us bring out the sacrifice!"

She swallows and turns in time to face the frenzy of the crowd.

* * *

><p>Samuel knows it is today. They woke him after dawn and gently lifted his tired body into a warm bath, scrubbing under his fingernails and combing the blood from his hair. His wound was carefully tied shut and he opened his eyes to soft, dark hands sweeping away the grime from his face with handfuls of spongy moss. Santana had told him once that he reminded her of someone, and that was enough for her to want to tend to him. They allowed it - who better to see him in his final moments than a priestess? Her eyes spoke apologies, but his smile silenced them because he knew she tried the hardest she could, and the countless blessings strewn across his limbs attest to that. He had already said his tearful goodbyes to Bretagne and knows she will not be able to join them with the festivities booming outside, but he readily misses her easy smile and bright , too, seems off-kilter without her presence. His only regret is that he will never get to hear them when they are at their finest, moving as one like Noach confided in him they used to.<p>

She used their soap until he was clean and smelled of tallow, her palms smoothing along his rigid muscles and creating a thick lather. He noticed the darkened circles around her hands, but said nothing, instead choosing to enjoy her touch, thinking of how another woman had never done anything like this for him. Santana tended to him with almost a motherly concern, and for a moment, while she was working the foam through his scalp, he swore her eyes flashed a deep, ocean-devouring blue. He reflected back on his father and the raving of heathens that hid in plain sight, but something so beautiful could never be evil. Perhaps he will meet his end here, but his faith in the outer reaches of the world has been undoubtedly restored.

Santana runs a straight blade up across his chin and cheeks to make the skin soft and supple before hauling him from the tub and wrapping him in linens. Laid out for him are simple, comfortable clothes - a tunic and breeches, all in white, tied with a leather belt. He steps into them and notes how the swelling has gone down in his face when he looks into the glass mirror; he can see through both eyes. Smatterings of blue and purple still litter his skin, but he can finally class himself as handsome, hair dripping wet and covered in smooth cloth. Santana says something with a small smile and he grins back regardless, looking up only when the guards come back with his final meal. They present him with a fine hunk of mead-glazed boar and several cups of wine in an effort to allow him to enjoy his last precious hours. They have recognized his pliancy and mistake it for willingness - as such they reward him by not treating him like a prisoner to be slaughtered.

They sit silently as he eats the spiced meat, dribbling fat down his chin, to which Santana rolls her eyes and mumbles something suspiciously like Noach's name. He wants so desperately to tell her of all the things he wants her to do in his stead, but contents himself with scrounging for a piece of scrap and writing a list with a child's handwriting, scrawling down symbols until his hand cramps and he runs out of words. It tells of adventures and romance and blonde hair, to never let pain break friendship and wait until it turns into something more. (The voice in his head, the voice of God, had told him how those two were meant to be, and, in time, will live for none but each other. He gave him flashes of two figures in all different parts of the world; hand in hand, side to side, front to front. It was so beautiful that he shed his first tears, and drove some of the men nervous with his sobs.) Then he thrusts it at her and tells her to give it to Noach - he prays he can read - and almost crumples in relief when she nods and tucks it into the pockets of her robe, next to the ever-present scroll that she strokes with her fingers even now. His wishes will live on through her and that little note safe in her hands.

The sun comes up, and with it do the people. He hears their boisterous laughter through the walls of his room where he remains in shadow, starting early in the festivities. When it increases to a roar he can only assume the prince has arrived, and with it his final minutes, as the distinct boom of his voice travels into their little hovel. Santana is delivered a strange paste by a little boy that looks disturbingly like him - he looks at Samuel with sad eyes and offers a trembling smile before slowly backing out. The priestess lights a previously unseen bushel of sage and lets the smoke fill the room to a thick haze, murmuring prayers and touching her fingertips to his skin, where he shivers and warms at her blessing. She rubs the paste over his forehead in a simple pattern; swirling loops split out into three branches and even now he feels the strength of her intent washing over him. Underneath his shirt goes another - what looks like a star but has seven points. It is cold on his flesh, but he feels safe somehow, like a blanket thrown over him. "May the Goddess guide you into death as she did into life," Santana whispers in her language while pressing the finishing touches to her runes, "and may you be reborn as kind and honourable as you were in this existence."

(A voice, different from the others, touches him. Feminine. Invisible hands brush against his collarbone.)

They stand still for a moment, and Samuel wordlessly opens his arms. She hesitates for a moment but eventually gives in to the solace he brings, wrapping herself around him in a way she has never done with anyone, save Brittany. The throb of his heartbeat is steady under her hand and she presses against it forcefully, almost willing it into herself so she would not have to part with it. Though she has simply known him for days, it feels like lifetimes.

Two guards silently file in. They wait until the friends break their embrace before situating themselves on either side of him, grasping him gently by his biceps. "Go find Bretagne, priestess," says one of them respectfully with a dip of his head, mindful of his wet markings as he shifts his grip. "The ceremony is about to start." Samuel sees her nod jerkily and with a final smile she is gone. They turn him around and lead him outwards through the dark corridors and into the spacious longhouse. Eyes follow him wherever he goes - some gleeful, some pitying. He spies the boy who could be his little brother, and smiles at the woman who must be his mother. She returns it sadly as he passes, drawing her son closer to him with her one good arm.

They emerge into the light and he has to flinch back at the first exposure to daylight in nearing a week. It burns his eyes, but from his squinted vision he can see the masses stretched out before him, and the great wooden platform that will be his deathbed. The first bout of nerves flutter faintly in his chest at sight of the beams constructed over it, and the single, thick noose dangling from the top. Two men stand there alongside it - one with a head of fire, and the other one of gold. The way the lighter man is situated slightly further ahead, he assumes that is Bjorn, prince of Vestfold. Samuel is escorted carefully underneath these beams where he is then released, alone in a crowd of people. From the sea of faces, he catches Bretagne's sorrowful gaze.

Bjorn calls out to his people who respond in kind; the rough bite of the noose is felt, looping around his neck and his hands tied behind his back. The markings are rapidly drying in the beating sun and he finds them some small comfort as Bjorn riles the crowd into what could only be described as a frenzy. One man steps forward and speaks in heavy English. "Do you wish to speak?" Samuel licks his dry lips and wonders if there's any way he can with the noose not yet tightened but nonetheless staggering in its symbolic weight. His cross thumps against his chest as he nods before turning to the awaiting villagers. "I understand that it is my time to die today, and I know that there is no avoiding it." It is strange to hear his words have a delayed reaction as the larger man repeats them in their own guttural tongue, like a distorted echo. "I only wish that I had been given more time. I entrust my soul both to my Lord and to your gods in hopes they will lead me true, and know that here, I atone for the sins that my father has undoubtedly committed." They tighten the noose around him, and though there are tears in his eyes, he finishes strong. "I say goodbye to the friends I made here, and hope that they find peace within themselves and each other."

Santana stands as close to Bretagne as he's ever seen, the two of them such a stark contrast to the surrounding ruckus. Bjorn looks almost remorseful as his hands falls on the wooden lever, calling out the name of his god before there is nothing but air under his feet, and he falls.

The rope snaps taut before his neck breaks, and Samuel dangles there helplessly, choking and gasping through an airway completely blocked off. His limbs flail feebly in the open space as he instinctively searches for grip, calling out to his Lord in his head in hopes of easing his pain. The sky is so very bright to his greying vision, so he casts his gaze downwards, rolling helplessly through the masses until he catches a glimpse of dark fingers intertwined with white. A small smile forms on his glistening lips.

Involuntary tears prick his eyelids as the burning in his chest begins to dull, replaced by a buzzing in his skull and ice in his fingertips. He heaves soundlessly in the air as the dark crawls through the edges of his gaze and narrows his consciousness to _this is it. This is where your story _ends.

Sounds fade out. He allows his mouth to gape open as he stills, swinging gently above the ground, slowing to a careless halt when his feet stop twitching for relief. Carefully, his body is enveloped in the imagined scent of jasmine as a woman smiles down upon him and gathers him up like a baby, pulling his tired frame to her breast and stepping away from the scene.

The last thing Samuel sees is his own body, flushed red and limp, hanging in nothingness and the brilliant blue sky.

* * *

><p>Santana refuses to cry, but that doesn't mean Brittany holds the same idea. Despite their spat she chases her friend through the roaring crowds, unable to see Samuel's body so openly gawked at for any longer than she already has. The presence of Ataecina washes through her as she comes to take him away, and she whispers up a silent thanks for her comforts in his final moments.<p>

Together they weave until they burst out the side; Brittany has the advantage and draws away from her, slamming into the longhouse instead of speeding off to her house like Santana believed she would.

Santana slows down and creeps her way through the empty house, following the trail of hurried footsteps and muffled hiccups that drift outwards from the dim hallways. She tracks the sounds to the servant's quarters, feet shuffling over the scuffed wood and fingers trailing over the walls. Her trust in Betar has dropped considerably as this day draws to a peak, and she finds herself casting her eyes anxiously over every nook and cranny, searching for a glimpse of warriors with weapons or a noose clasped firmly in their hands. Such a barbaric sacrifice falls ill on the shoulders of the noble race she's begun to see emerge from the legends and tales held by her people, meshing right back into their stories of drinking from skulls and foaming at the mouth upon the battlefield.

As she finally approaches the room, Santana hears Brittany's distinct voice pouring forth frenzied soliloquies of broken Norse, punctuated by sobs and whimpers muffled by some sort of fabric. Santana peers through the doorframe and smothers a gasp with the palm of her hand.

Brittany has sprawled herself at the feet of the woman she injured so grievously months ago, crying into her lap and begging forgiveness with a repeated mantra of _sorry sorry please forgive me please I would do anything just please stop being mad_ while being completely oblivious to the mother's soft, hushing sounds of comfort and the hand stroking the hair from her head. Santana watches for a moment, but seeing Brittany in such a state of grief feels like something she should not witness. Footsteps approach from behind, but her hand reaches out and grasps the collar of the young boy and hauls him away before he can make any trouble.

"What are you- priestess!" He exclaims his surprise and strains to catch a glimpse of the scene unfolding next to them. It seems Samuel's death has snapped something within Brittany, for it has no end, the wailing apologies and the convulsions of her breath. "What is she doing?"

"Apologizing, Reinn. It is not for our eyes." Despite the circumstances she feels a great, burning pride for Brittany, and relief as her own forgiveness seeps through the cracks of her hurt to be dissolved and shuffled away. Perhaps it isn't all over, not yet, but finally the healing can begin.

"It solves nothing." He grumbles irritably but flinches at a rather piercing cry that floats outwards form the room. Despite his blunt words and sour demeanour, he has a point.

The scroll calls to her, and her fingers caress the dry pages.

(She is Santana Lopez, and she knows what must be done.)


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Hello again! It's been a while, I know. I could weave tales of homework and wretched teachers and laptop-snatchers who deserve to get hit by large, moving objects, but instead I'm going to say that it hopefully won't happen again, and here's another chapter to make up for it. As usual, thanks to my magnificent beta **LeMasquerade **who fought through university homework and having everything stolen and still managed to get this back to me. So kudos to her, and enjoy!

A/N 2: People were telling me they couldn't see it, so here's a re-upload.

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><p>Chapter 11<p>

**abide in me and I vow to you**

**I will never forsake you**

_**August 17**__**th**__**, 912**_

_ I write in unpractised hand, for I have not touched my fingers to paper since I arrived here in Kaupang. There are eyes everywhere in the world, watching, prying; for this I write in the most obscure calligraphy that I can muster in hopes that not even those that understand my mother tongue can decipher these secrets. _

_ Are they secrets, or simply things hidden in shadow, lying in wait? I am not sure - for twelve years I knew not these things even existed, and the six years after that were shrouded in doubt and the comfort of Mami's protection. But now I see - only glimpses, but I do. The ritual I have performed to heal the ravaged flesh... Goddess, cleanse me of the memory. Let your benevolent hand strike this scroll from my grasp and the feeling of her skin from my thoughts. I wish not to write what transpired in that room, for recounting it will simply haunt me further, but know that I am changed. Perhaps not obviously, not in a way that will cause harm or help to others. I can overcome it, as I have many tragedies. But its voice... it follows me, stronger than in my dreams. The hiss as it drank from me and the things I saw-_

_ No. I must stay away from such things. Here I put my thoughts to word in an effort to order my unruly ideals, sort fact from fiction and shadow from seen. Even now I sense Brittany's gaze on me while I write, and wonder if she can read the things I think upon my face. _

_ It has been more than a week since Samuel's execution. I cannot think of it in any other way, for that is what it was. His life was taken from him so swiftly and without reason, and I know now they fear retaliation from the south. Perhaps their gods will answer and spare them that pain, but I see no reason to grant them even the mercy of a swift death. He certainly was not given one. _

_ But those are simply my ruminations. __Those, I can talk about to Noach, or even Brittany in my growing knowledge of her language __- instead it is more simple to use this bond we have, defying all reason and time that allows us to be so interwoven we are One, to share breath and blood and brain. __I can speak into her mind without words and glimpse the essence of her; her vitae, her marrow__**.**__ In her, I see the conflict between her inherent nature and planted nurture, the white-hot river buried deep and forked by pathways that turn it into gentle flowing streams. She is a paradox of her creation and I am beginning to see this now, that things are never so simple as one would make it seem._

_ Some things, however... some I cannot give to others for they are not theirs to know. Not because I foolishly wish to keep this to myself. __No, because I cannot bear to give them the burden that haunts the quiet of my thoughts in the dead of night._

_ There are whispers. Shadows that are too deep, nights that are too silent. Always on the edges of my vision, flitting in and out, taunting me with their snake-tongued words and their dark frost. It started mere hours after the ritual, after the scroll, after it... did what it did. I have only used it once, and have no intention of using it again, for the rush of madness that came with its power was enough to blind me. Perhaps it will remain the way it is, or perhaps it will fade away in time. I fear the things I see are simply the beginnings of something else that I cannot name, hovering just over the horizon. The only thing that banishes the shadow is Brittany's embrace._

_ For my sake as well as hers, forgiveness has been given.__ I refused to live any longer like I had, with but without her, caught in the twilight of my own mind. __I know that her brutality is as much a hidden and unwanted part of her as is this darkness that I now sense; it is strange how we fit together though we are as different as two people could ever be. _

_ I do not believe in circumstance, but I do believe in the Fates. And here, I feel their touch on everything we do._

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><p><strong>August 13<strong>**th****, 912**

_It is strange how quickly things change, _she thinks.

Santana stands upon the mountain that edges itself above Kaupang, its towering girth shielding it from the mainland and the other shear peaks Northvegia holds. From her perch she studies the town and its occupants below; they scurry about their daily tasks as easily as they did days ago, with a sort of grim determination and joyous distractions. The port teems with life - wooden ships carry their precious cargo to and from their destination, men hauling boxes up and down the ramps, waving off the ships that sail out into the great sea until they become but specks upon the wavering horizon.

Not one of them grieves.

She wipes away the sweat from her brow and sighs irritably, folding down to sit with crossed legs upon the dry grass. It shouldn't hurt as much as it does, to watch them go about their weeks while she remains stuck in a bitter stupor, but perhaps she had begun to grow attached to these people. The ones with the strange tongue and loud men and shameless women, who extend kindness as easily as brutality. Though they look another world from her, she sometimes finds companionship within them, a similarity once hidden. They are of the same heart as the people in Botaya. Kind, open. But if this moon has taught her anything, it is that demons can lurk in the clothing of saints.

Samuel's _death _(Santana has grown to loathe the word) has brought upon one positive change, no matter how much it pains her to admit. Laughter is now frequent in the slave's quarters - Brittany visits almost every day with a tentative smile and a small gift, may it be food, blankets, a spare needle and thread. Though the tension is visible along every coil of her muscle, the bedridden woman soothes her nervousness and coaxes her to sit until they talk animatedly with each other. Brittany regales her with tales of what Kaupang was like as a child; hiding amongst the woods, playing _draugar_ with Anvindr, long hours of weapons training. She would listen intently to the viking as Santana quietly stretched out her arm, Brittany's words fading with guilt as pain would flicker across her features whenever dark hands pressed too close to the wound.

It has given them time to relearn each other, safe in the veil that a third party brings. Santana finds herself answering directly to Brittany now instead of simply ignoring her, smiling where before she would keep her face stoic. It feels good to trust again, even if it took an atrocity and a loss of faith.

Crashing through the brush. Santana tenses of her own accord and slides her eyes over to the rustling trees - nothing can be trusted with rapports of _draugar_ shambling through the forests, carried upon heavy feet and unfeeling bodies as they steal into houses in the dead of night. There have been whispers, rumours; amongst those that turn to dust there is one that does not fall to the bite of blade, its limbs splitting open only to be sewn back together. A patchwork monstrosity that stalks in the light of the moon.

Dark fur darts through the low-lying bushes and moments later her lap is filled with squirming muscle, little claws scrabbling upon the cotton of her robes and a warm tongue lapping delightedly under her jaw. Santana laughs and winds her arms around Sandalio, scratching furiously behind his ears, feeling the strong thump of his tail hit against the barrel of her ribs. "Why hello there," she coos to him, sputtering when he licks against the open seal of her lips, "have you come all by yourself? You made quite the noise getting here." He yips and settles down firmly into her lap, leaning his side against her chest and contenting himself with the warmth of her body. Another crunch in the bracken and his brown eyes avert to where his other mistress stumbles her way through the forest.

Brittany curses again in a rather irate sounding tongue, brushing leaves from her hair and glaring around the mountain. "Where did you go?" Her cheeks are flushed red and strands of hair have escaped from her braid to frame her face - her fair brows have drawn into a scowl with down-turned lips. Santana frowns and clings tighter to Sandalio even as Brittany spots her and some of the thunder disappears from her eyes.

"You found him!" She exclaims with relief, moving over to sit beside the priestess with a respectable amount of distance between them. In truth she wishes to be so close as to feel the heat from her skin, but she knows not where they stand. Instead she reaches out and pets Sandalio's muzzle to distract herself and avoid the curious eyes drilling into the side of her head. "He ran off when Mikhail tried to give him a bath and it was impossible to find him. I tried to ask Lord Tubbi, but he has been reading my runes and I think he dislikes it when I misspell his name, so he refused to answer." Santana watches Brittany carefully school her face into the blank, expressionless mask she so often wears. Still, the ruddiness of her skin lingers with the brewing blizzard in her gaze.

She winds her fingers through thick fur before shifting over to watch her companion. "What wrong, Brittany?"

Brittany startles for a second, almost as if she didn't expect the question (sometimes she forgets that Santana can read her so well that it is pointless to hide) but still refuses to meet her stare. "Nothing."

Perhaps they have been disjointed as of late, but Santana feels almost disappointed that Brittany tries to conceal things from her. She scoots closer, mindful of Sandalio in her lap, until she can place a tentative hand on her strong bicep. Brittany's eyes flicker upwards in surprise. Are they... okay?

"Lie. What wrong?"

Brittany chews on her lip for a moment - those fingers curl around the strength of her arm and she is gone, deflating and hunching down like a sunken ship as she rakes her hand through her messy braid. "It... Father is the problem." An understatement; she has not forgiven him for Samuel's... end (she has been unable to even think the word, for thinking it makes it suddenly real) and the brief snatches of conversation they have shared always resulted in a larger rift between them both. He wants what she has no desire for, and all the things she requires are unable to be given. The Klintir family has been stealing into his ocean-swathed longhouse at all hours of the day to discuss things in hushed, plotting tones, and Fingeirr watches her almost constantly with the knowledge of something she does not yet know. Or, that which she didn't know until now. "I am seventeen summers... by this age, Father expects me to be betrothed to one of the men in the village. He listens to nothing I say - everybody my age are receiving proposals and marrying and- _consummating_ that bond." Her breath chokes upon that word, a shiver of disgust rippling up over her spine.

Santana screws up her face in confusion. "_Fullgera?_"

Her companion's cheeks bloom into flame as she awkwardly scratches the back of her neck. "Yes... _fullgera._ To consummate." She makes hand gestures with her hands but receives only a blank stare. "To have sex?" Still nothing. Instead she places her hands on imaginary shoulders and gyrates her hips, miming her head thrown back as her fingers run through her already dishevelled hair. It clicks in Santana with an audible _oh_ and she clears her throat, averting her eyes from Brittany's moving body until she settles back down in the grass. From the corner of her vision, she eyes the rounding curve of her hips hidden only partly in her breeches.

After a quiet second, Santana manages to regain her grasp on composure. "With who?"

Brittany doesn't even try to hide her disgust. "Finngeirr. He says it is for the best, but he cannot force me to touch him, even upon penalty of my honour." She had spoken to Grandfather about it over a shallow cup of wine and a heavy heart. He had stroked the hair from her face and offered nothing more than a sad smile. _I will talk to him, _he had whispered, _but you know that he does what he believes is best for you._ Sometimes she doubts his words, his actions contradicting his speech.

Santana scrunches her nose angrily - the thought of the big boy touching her friend spurs a hot kind of pain to spill out all over the inside of her sternum to the point where her fingers glow bright and white. Exempt from marriage as she is, it is impossible for her to grasp the urgency in which this matter seems to be spiralling towards disaster - everything from Brittany's unwound look suggests something entirely massive and equally unwanted. But the way she glares down at the general populace scurrying around speaks of something else entirely.

"More?"

She hums in question and turns curiously to Santana. "More what?"

"Problem. More problem?"

Brittany taps her hand nervously against her folded knee. "Maybe... I-I do not know what to believe yet."

An arch of an eyebrow and Brittany sighs, placing her elbows on her thighs. "Everybody says it was for the better, what happened last week." Santana stiffens upon her perch and Brittany grinds the heels of her palms into her eyes to erase the sting already building. "No matter who I talk to, they are pleased with how it turned out. They say Odinn would be cruel to neglect us now."

"Do... do you think?"

She sucks her lower lip into her mouth anxiously. Does she? Perhaps Odinn is pleased, but not even the might of the Father-God can stop the whispers she hears of the men on horseback stampeding through the countries. Everything has since bowed to their might and they sweep through with unprecedented swiftness, chanting and calling for salvation their God will unwaveringly grant. She remembers seeing Harald once as a child; he was magnificent upon a thick northern horse, armour glittering and weapons polished to perfection. She had compared his gaze to a hawk, taking in all he surveyed with a calculating, impassive eye. How had he gone so wrong? A north-man was never meant to turn on his brothers, no matter how far he would settle from his motherland.

Yet they allow themselves to be complacent in their faith, believing that Odinn's watchful protection will keep them safe from French blades and massive pyres. Brittany knows from experience (vague memories of a tiny little town, the distant sound of horns, bodies torn to pieces as she wandered the wreckage) that not everything can be fixed with prayer alone. How do they not see this?

"No," she says quietly, turning to face Santana defiantly, "not anymore. Samuel did not deserve to... to..." Her tongue stalls and she instead shakes her head, blindly seeking Santana's hand for comfort and smiling weakly when she does not pull away.

These people are her life. They accepted her, took her in, nurtured her into anything she wanted to be. Her world has been nothing but Kaupang and the riches it brings, safe within their niche by the sea. But now she sees a side to them that perhaps Santana first witnessed, of cruelty and baying for blood, how they are not the wonders she wanted them to always have been. This shift in perspective is startling, upsetting, and it is a comfort that she sees the same changes in her friend - though she wishes it would not be the case. Nobody is oblivious to the stiffness in Santana's shoulders or the cold anger in her gaze, words unusually clipped and quiet.

"I miss him." Brittany whispers softly, leaning into Santana's shoulder. The other girl sighs quietly and nods, tightening her hold of Brittany's hand.

"I know. Me too."

He is gone, but he left something important in his wake. The three lean together as if nothing else will hold them up and silently watch the sky dip into darkness.

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><p><strong>August 13th, 912<strong>

"You will not disrespect me in my own hall!" Betar's voice rumbles through the rafters of the room, his massive body hiding the large chair up on the platform from view. Intricate jewels twined through his beard rattle and shake with his furious movements, the scabbard of his sword hitting his thigh, one hand clenching into an angry fist. Below him, Bretagne remains defiant, her own stance hostile as she vehemently shakes her head.

"Then you would do well not to disrespect me either!" She yells, her face turning red from the strain. All inside the longhouse duck discreetly from the clashing tempers. In this stubborn battle of wills there is no winner. "This is a blow to my honour, do you not see? I am one that will accept a mate, not have one forced upon me!"

Towards the back Finngeirr shifts nervously, his eyes darting from father to daughter. What if she refuses to accept him? He would look a fool in front of the whole village! He must convince Betar as soon as possible that it will be in Bretagne's finer interests.

"You are seventeen summers, girl! You show no desire for a husband, and yet, all the others in the village have already married. You _know_ your duties."

"I was never like the others," she says quietly, her voice deadly, "and I never will be. If you excuse me, my Jarl, I believe Sandalio requires a bath." Without giving him chance to reply back, she storms from the hall - in her wake she leaves nothing but oppressive air and the scent of spearmint.

It is silent for what seems an eternity. Dragging one hand over his face, he throws himself in his chair and turns his attention to the man waiting respectfully in the shadows, nothing but the tips of his leather shoes peeking from the darkness.

"Report."

He is weary; his fur skins are ragged and hang loosely around his haggard frame. There are dark circles haunted under his eyes - within him is the knowledge of the kingdom and the recommended course of action. Betar notices how his fingers tremble when he stands and offers a chair, into which he sinks gratefully. A man of the north run down to his bones.

"They have pushed through most of Germania," he says in a wheezing growl, "and will undoubtedly come to Taunmark if not halted. Most of the towns give 'way under their power in an effort to avoid conflict, but you can see the smoke for miles around."

The new jarl squeezes his eyes shut and mentally maps out in his mind. If they encroach through Germania now, it's probable they've already taken Francia and much, if not all, of Iberia. Santana spoke of their armies that came through with little regard to the rules of the land, simply preaching their story and taking what needed to be taken. When he asked about Harald, however, she simply looked at him like he was speaking a foreign language. It means he is undoubtedly heading north with the bulk of his forces and his slippery nephew at his side. Where had it all gone wrong? Harald was a fine northman, of true icewater blood. "And Britannia?"

His scout scratches his bushy eyebrow thoughtfully and bites his heat-cracked lips. "They are still standing but most of the kingdom yielded to the White Christ before this ever started. There will be little problem from them."

Perhaps if he could...

"They would never join us, my jarl." He murmurs quietly in regret. "They believe us heathens. And after the sacrifice of their priest's son... they want our heads more than our hands."

Betar sighs heavily and nods once, dropping his head into his upturned palm. "I understand." It seems no good has come of that wretched boy and his secret worlds. Not only has Bretagne decided to remain as far from the longhouse as she possibly can, but it seems that Santana has been especially dark as late; her gaze brooding and unreachable when he deigns to speak with her. She barely has begun to let his daughter in once again... if she so decides to turn against them, he fears what her power can do. People have reported that the cold in the night has gotten sharper, crueler, often opening doors and windows long after they have been bolted shut. The constant twitching of her fingers and the whispered words she weaves under her breath have him on edge, to say the least.

To add to paranoia, Samuel's body has gone missing.

They scoured the edges of the village, searched through the forests and canvassed the seas. Nothing. He has simply vanished without a trace in the few hours he was left unattended while the priestess prepared his funeral pyre. People speak of _draugar_ and there is little he can do to stop them.

"Sire?"

Betar blinks and looks around at all the eyes watching him. They await _his_ orders to give; getting lost in his own head brings nothing but problems.

"Send warning to Sæheimr and Taunmark. I do not believe Harald foolish enough to try and invade here, but the puppet pulling his strings just might be. A caution to the town... if they so wish to pillage a city far from our coasts, they are not to engage with the enemy. We do not need additional grievances to add onto our problems."

He bows low and retreats off his chair, disappearing in a flurry of thick shawls. Betar watches him go for a moment before rising himself; his colourful garments shimmer with the light of the sun and catch on his flaming head of hair. One of his massive hands ghosts carefully over his new sword, presented to him in the wake of his new position, palming the pommel upon habit. A beautiful thing, engraved handle with a fine double-edged blade made of iron and edged with the sharpest steel. Upon the hilt, a bear snarls up at him. "I go to Yngvarr." He announces to the audience before him, shaking a few of his braids from his shoulders before moving out the door. The heavy echo of his boots bounce around his hallways.

The Hammer of the North is respected by all for various reasons. He is the first man that beat Betar in combat with his heavy-handed weapon almost a blur of movement. It is through him that he met his wife, and through his wife that he met his daughter. The jarl bites his tongue at the thought of his family - one dead, one angry. What has he done to merit such misfortune?

"Father?" He calls as he steps up to the smaller, modest longhouse where lives the fabled warrior. After the death of his own parents many years ago, it seemed only fitting that Yngvarr would fill the hole that loss left behind. Betar sidesteps the cougar frozen in the hallway with its sightless eyes glaring down upon intruders, past the kitchen that bubbles constantly, through the expansive main hallway that hosts all kinds of furs and fabrics. Stepping into his house is like emerging into another world - he spies scimitars of the sandy southern warriors, the strange wooden staves of the distant east, the heavy clinking armor pieced together from all different factions. The jarl runs his fingers along a beautiful piece of scalemail, adorned with the crimson scales of a ferocious dragon.

Sometimes Betar wonders if he cheated himself out of something, staying in Kaupang to raise his daughter on his own instead of exploring the world. But one look at Bretagne erases every single doubt he's ever had.

"Betar?" Comes the voice from behind him. The younger man whirls around and smiles once he sees the old, grizzled veteran decked in simple clothing and his forever constant hammer. Sometimes it amazes him how silent such a large man can be. "Come in, come in! Not too busy with your new position to visit me, hm?"

Betar laughs and ungracefully splays himself in a furred armchair, stretching out his muscled limbs to collapse inwards on himself with a satisfied huff. Almost immediately a servant whisks out and pours him wine into a nearby goblet, giving a little bow before vanishing into the corridor. Yngvarr sits down opposite him, throwing his legs over a table and fixing his soul-son with his signature piercing stare. "What seems to be the problem? You look as if a pack of wolves have done you over."

One large hands runs itself wearily over his face again. So many problems to fix, so little time. "Everything. The army comes in from below, the villagers grow restless above, other jarls in Vestfold are beginning to look down upon me for having an unwed daughter. I wish to marry her to Finngeirr, but I fear she would never forgive me if I went ahead without her blessings."

Two white eyebrows raise over a wrinkled forehead. "Finngeirr?" He scoffs, completely ignoring the other plaints for now. "Why? That boy is about as competent as my right foot... which has coincidentally been going lame."

"You should get Santana to look at that for you." Betar says absently before shaking his head. "Maybe he _is _incompetent, but his family is close to revered! Marrying Bretagne to him would be a sure way to gain favour and respect among the nobles. I am not allowed to instigate the marriage, but it is obvious that his family is interested in my daughter and will undoubtedly ask for her hand eventually. Who knows, perhaps they would end up liking each other."

Not likely. Earlier on in her life she had made him _promise_ he would never do what he is trying to do at the moment. Her happiness means so much to him that there is little he places above it, but she _knows_ marriage is a rite of passage for the girls world-over. Even one as wild and untamed as his daughter.

"Betar, you know as well as I do that Bretagne would never be happy with somebody like him. She needs somebody that can challenge her without belittling her, that can listen to her insane theories without trying to shoot them down. Is the word of your peers truly worth more than what she wants? Perhaps she will never become bethrothed... it could be for the best. It is doubtful she would ever _want _to settle down with another man." The emphasis he places on man causes Betar's eyebrow to arch, but the impassive expression on Yngvarr's face gives nothing away.

"Well, what do you propose I do, then? If you know her so deeply, what is best for her?"

The old man scowls. "You ask for my advice, I would advise you, then, not to become sharp with me."

A moment later, Betar relents. "Apologies, faðir. I simply want the best for her."

"Then let her be," he claps a hand on his companion's broad shoulder, "and allow her to work it out on her own. Bretagne was never meant to be reined in. She seems to be getting along for the better with Santana again, and that is enough for her."

A picture of Santana filters into his thoughts; sun-kissed skin and bottomless eyes. She is the polar opposite of everything his daughter is, yet they get along better than anybody else he's ever seen. It's unsettling. "I fear for her if Santana so chooses to use her. She is too kind, too trusting... she would do almost anything for that girl."

Yngvarr wears a secret smile. "Ah, that might be true, but it is also the same in reverse. Fear not for her, dear son. Things will turn out for the better."

Betar blows out a gust of air. "Perhaps." The wine in his cup is dishearteningly empty, and he swirls around the remaining drips thoughtfully. "I will leave her for now. But if the time comes, I will have to force my hand no matter how much she will despise me for it." In time, she will realize it to be for the better, joining the two families together to form one force in the heart of Kaupang.

If only he could believe that.

* * *

><p><strong>August 15<strong>**th****, 912**

_Breathe._

Fingers flicker, opening up into bloom to reveal scarred palms soaking in the dying light of the sun. From the rays that shine down the skin seems to absorb the glow, leeching into the being below and lending heat to the covered bones. All around is the unique noise of nature; sound in the silence as the air giving life is one in the same to that which howls across the frozen seas.

_Breathe. Let go._

A shuddering exhale and upon the end floats with it the wisps of consciousness - all at once Santana knows nothing but the gentle beat of the earth underneath her feet. The heat on her skin is one in the same to the warmth of her blood, the touch of the wind the same as hands which pry her open and spread her apart. She is no longer anything of importance, simply another piece moved by an invisible force.

_What do you know?_

The taste of sun-ripened berries. The padding of grass. The press of warm fur against her shins.

_Not feel, priestess. Know._

Her brow furrows though she does not physically sense the change. Concentration wavers and threatens to snap but the guiding presence lingers and remains to keep her far from the world. Why is she here? Yes, yes... that is the knowledge of her own. Focus upon the eve of the act that could fix her problems or simply become the catalyst for another unknown, of shadows and smothered light.

_She will be with me always,_ Santana thinks, and receives an answering chime in her mind. Her lips part and the Goddess slips between her teeth and down her throat, much like the firewater drunk what seems a lifetime ago. Veins light and muscles hum and all of a sudden she's not _there, _she's somewhere else, the divide between living and beyond. She opens wondering eyes at the brush of gentle fingers against her face. Ataecina smiles back with her milky eyes filled to bursting with internal light and the gentle clink of charms hanging from her horns. Santana smiles in return and allows herself to be swept into an encompassing hug from which she has no desire to leave.

"It has been too long, my child." Has it been months? Time moves so quickly in this village of pale strangers whom have fast become her world. After what only seems a split second (but in other lifetimes are potential eternities), Santana reluctantly parts from her loving embrace to instead scan her surroundings. Little has changed from her previous visit, save from the ever-encroaching desert of dry, deserted land hosting the bones of the damned. More skeletons have since joined the dead.

The girl carefully edges to the barrier into the wasteland. One hand draws itself out from her side and stretches until the tips brush against the porous surface, skimming over the ink-black seams that race across the skull like roads. She gets a glimpse of a Frenchman with two daughters and a son, poor with rags but smiles upon their faces. The priestess draws away in sadness but reaches out to the next one, whispering a silent apology to the absent bones. This time a woman, Iberian... her face is obscured in a covering of black cloth and an immense weight, known only to her, makes her shoulders hunch like an old crone. So it goes as Santana touches one after another in the sprawling army of the dead, pictures of so many flashing; men, women, children; civilized, savage, somewhere in between. Her hand is almost frenzied as she reaches for the last and sees a face staring back that she knows - the man that warned her and her mother what seems like a lifetime ago that started her on this journey north. What was his name?

_Ricardo, _Ataecina whispers into her mind. Yes, Ricardo... the farmer. Always with a kind smile. He was the one that gave them their horse, Agate, when she was so very young. An almost forgotten pang of homesickness hits and almost sweeps her off her feet with its intensity, but the Mother's sturdy hand presses between her shoulderblades and keeps her upright.

"So much death..." Santana breathes, casting her eyes over the countless silenced by the blades of their conquerors. With a start she once more feels the throb of the misplaced heartbeat against her breastbone - it had become so much a part of her that she hardly noticed it anymore. Her _mami_ was alive, then. A great relief filled her soul. "Are these all of the army and their crusades?"

Her Goddess pinches her lips to one side. "Not all, but most. Many have died of the indirect famine as they pay what it takes to feed a force like this one."

It's too quiet. Santana shudders and retreats back into the lush grasses that simply thrum with life, ducking into a small grove of trees and immersing herself in the fact that nothing has yet fallen in these parts. Here she can relish in the frenzy of life without the constant, creeping presence of death. Ataecina seats herself opposite her priestess and studies the sharp slope of her jaw carefully. "You have need of me."

Though it seems to be phrased as a question it holds as much power as a statement. Santana shifts her eyes away from her deity's beauty in shame, twining her fingers over and over into knots. Surrounded by such luminescence - the trees with flourishing fruit, the animals nursing their fearless young - her cause seems... unworthy. Evil, almost.

"Santana." She looks up. From this angle, the patient smile looks almost as Brittany's does in the dead of night, free from the chains of her dreams. "You have no need to hide from me."

Her hands float to the siren's song in the pockets of her robes, stroking gingerly along the pages before drawing it from the hidden depths of her clothing. Here, visible as its true self, she recoils at the shadow that seethes along the vellum - angry and cold, it worms into her mind and whispers things of utmost revulsion, of death and torture and debauchery. As her fingers stroke the pages, its song enters her mind and she fights its digust of Ataecina's eternal realm.

A hand covers her own that have begun to shake. The Goddess gently curls her slender fingers around the cursed material. "May I?" Though Santana nods it is difficult to pry it from her frozen grasp - the thing calls in her head when it is handled by the stronger force. Ataecina's brow furrows and she murmurs something quietly in a slurring tongue; almost instantly the distress plaguing her ceases and she can breathe again.

"Where did you find this?" The seal pops open as she unravels it, scanning over the undulating markings. Santana tries to see what it spells out for her Goddess, but she is unable to read the language.

"A seið-mann named Styrr. He came to Kaupang a few moons ago."

Slowly, a small smile blooms on Ataecina's lips.

"What?"

"You use their words."

Santana blushes and scratches the back of her neck. It has become easier and easier to communicate in their odd, harsh language; almost two seasons have passed since she first set foot upon their shores and she finds herself less jarred by their way of life. Her clothes have become worn in and comfortable - the grey of her robes is a welcome embrace around her body during the day. The boots she first bought in Aarhus are worn around the edges and dusty from their streets, the toggles frayed. Her tongue no longer skips along the syllables.

"Perhaps. Brittany has been helping me along." Another grin appears but this time it is secretive and mixed with a smirk, her monochrome eyes sparkling from under her lidded lashes. For the life of her, Santana cannot fathom what would be so amusing. She clears her throat, gesturing vaguely in her direction.

"Can... can you tell me what it is?"

Gentle fingers skim the ragged sides, mouthing along to words visible only to one. The Mother flips it in her hands until it settles closed again and she places it between them.

"You know what it is, my child."

That's what she had been afraid of. "An invitation?"

"Close. A bribe."

Santana frowns.

"When you desire, Santana, you do so deeply." Ataecina explains. As she talks her limbs flick through the air and paint wispy shapes that waver in and out of being; Reinn, Brittany, even Sandalio. Brittany's image burns brighter than the rest. "So deeply that you let little get in the way of what you want. Styrr has given you a gateway, a method to quench that insatiable longing for more." Gynna, the one crippled in the attack, appears before them. "With this knowledge you possess, he knows you will be forced to cure her through your own guilt and loyalty. In a sense, he has played you into a corner. Has he not?"

Even though she wishes not to, Santana feels the truth in her words. Frustration bubbles under the surface. "Why do I have to go through him, Mother?" She pleads. "Why can you not give me the strength I require to fix her injuries?"

The Goddess smiles sadly and shakes her head. "That is not of my ability. Though it is the realm of healing, it is... unnatural. I cannot deal in things that have no place being."

Cannot, or will not? Santana shakes the thought from her head. Being so long in Styrr's presence has played tricks with her mind.

They tilt their heads up to watch the birds of prey circle each other playfully in the blinding blue sky. Puffs of cloud float lazily on by and for a fleeting moment she entertains simply staying here, serving her Goddess to the best of her abilities and leaving these worldly pains behind. It seems so much simpler than what awaits her in the valley of the mountains upon the lip of the sea.

But Brittany's voice filters in through her mind, soft even after she loses her trust in the violent strangers she had begun to call her friends. _You give them hope, Santana. Comfort. Let me do that for you._ She sighs and rubs at her eyes - her own self wouldn't let her abandon those people, no matter how little they trust her.

"This scroll... it is of the dark. What you warned me about."

Ataecina nods.

One hand goes to burrow itself into a mess of onyx hair. "Tell me not to do it, Goddess, and I will never touch it again. I know of the things it does to us, how it turns us into phantoms. Please, just _say _it." Her wish to help is strong but her will to her deity is stronger. If Ataecina condemns it so, she will cast it into the ocean with a light heart.

"You know I would never do that, child." White silk whispers as the Mother raises to her full, sprawling height only to kneel and take Santana's face between her flawless palms. "Your will is entirely your own. You must decide whether this is something for you."

Santana drops her head onto her offered shoulder and presses her suddenly stinging eyes into the crook of her neck. "I want to help her so much that it overwrites the consequences."

"Then you have your answer, no?"

The girl swallows, fearful. She remembers the man that came into their home in the dead of night - how he dragged the shadows of dusk along with his tortured form and spoke like rattling chains. What if that is what becomes of her? The dark that rots her insides and warps her mind? It has not yet happened to Styrr, but what she has learned above all else is that he is a master of deceit. For all she knows he could be but a skeleton, and this skin simply a mask to hide behind.

"Fear and caution are two different things, my love. If you are to do this, do it with a focused mind and a steady heart. It will find no purchase if you are sure. It is in indecisiveness that it succeeds." Ataecina smiles. "You have a good soul, Santana. It might be a difficult path, but I believe everything will fall into place eventually."

Dark has begun to fall upon them. The ever broken sky wavers and tips more towards the night - it is an explosion of stars which swirl overhead, a plethora of constellations that dance and flicker in endless rotations. Santana sees further than she ever has before and wonders absently if another does the same thing on the other side of the universe. The beyond is a mysterious creature, forever cloaked in superstition and shadow but feared without reason. There is perhaps no joy in death, but there is solace.

One hand slides over her shoulder to curl gently around her bicep until she is being tugged upwards. They walk silently from the copse with the grasses crumpling under their feet until they stand where Santana first arrived, straddling the barrier between the two worlds. When she looks at her Mother in question, she simply receives a smile in return. "Your friend awaits you."

A shimmering picture of Brittany appears from thin air; facing her, she has clasped Santana's limp hands in her own and studies her vacant eyes with an intense scrutiny, resting her elbows on her crossed legs. Her braid is thick and shiny today, still damp from the basin Mikhail forced her into. Despite the almost solemn picture, a small smile plays on her lips. Sandalio leans against them both, his head sprawled into Brittany's lap and his tail lazily thumping against the soft ground. A warmth fills Santana's chest that causes her flesh to prickle - the imprint of Brittany's touch is felt along her skin.

"Be kind to her. She will be your greatest ally in the moons to come."

Santana nods and makes to go back to the material world but stops just as her connection starts to haze over.

"Ah... Goddess. I was hoping I could ask you something?"

"Of course."

"A friend of ours was taken from us and delivered to you suns ago. Samuel? How... how is he? We miss him dearly," her throat swells rebelliously though she tries to keep her voice from wavering, "and it would mean much to us if we knew he was at peace."

Something dark passes over her countenance for a moment before it simply settles into a troubled frown. The way her lips twist downwards doesn't bode well. "I took him upon his death, yes... but there was another."

What? "A-another?"

"Yes. He was safe with me, but upon arriving here... part of him became lost. The entirety of his soul does not yet reside in this realm."

Lost spirits are generally classified as ghosts - tortured things that walk the earth in search of satisfaction. Santana's stomach twists into uneasy knots at the thought of Samuel being one of those cursed _things_. "Is he-"

"Samuel craves his other half, my child, and he will return to me in due time. It will perhaps just take a little longer than originally planned."

She nods but it does little to ease the paranoia now brewing in her chest. The world mists over for a moment as she closes her eyes and submerges herself far below her consciousness - the connection to her Mother's realm wavers and finally snaps like a piece of twine. She leaves with the imprint of her smile and a whispered prayer in her mind.

The first thing she feels upon returning is warm air ghosting across her cheeks. Though her lids are open it takes a few moments for her vision to return to her body - almost immediately she settles in on strikingly oceanic eyes mere inches from her own. Santana freezes and so does Brittany; red blooms on her cheeks from being caught but she is now the one trapped in her gaze. One tanned hand raises itself carefully into the space between them. Testing the waters, Santana gently brushes her thumb against the center of Brittany's forehead and relishes the spike of shivers that rack her companion's frame.

"What you do here?" Santana says softly, eyes shifting down to Brittany's collarbone. Prolonged eye contact makes her uncomfortable with everybody she's ever known, but not Brittany. It is reflect that moves her gaze, not want. (Never want.)

Brittany swallows once (Santana watches the flutter of her throat in fascination) and stumbles for words. "I wanted to see you."

No other reason, no other need. Simply for her company. _Is this what it feels like to have a friend? _Santana smiles and it's so brilliant that it coaxes Brittany's lips to quirk up in return until they grin at each other like fools with their eyes crinkling around the edges and their noses scrunching. It is Santana's first _sólarljós-bros _in weeks and it fills Brittany with an indescribable sort of joy.

"Thank you."

"Of course."

Wind gusts by and Santana realizes she's now cradling Brittany's cheek, her thumb brushing gently across her parted lips. Without knowing entirely what she's doing her appendage travels across the pale, pink expanse, memorizing the cracked flesh underneath her touch, until the resistance gives away. Upon the first touch of the inside of Brittany's mouth it is like she's struck by a million bolts of lightning. Santana inhales sharply and crimson spills down Brittany's neck even as her tongue tentatively swipes against the gloss of her nail and slides underneath the spongy pad of her thumb. A deep throb starts itself up between her legs as Brittany moves her jaw and pearly teeth scrape gently against her bones; she feels helpless even if it is her that seeks, the one that touches the wet heat of her mouth and runs her thumb against the flat of her tongue.

Santana's eyes close of her own accord as she explores longer, further - the dragon within her chest that has since remained silent for so long stirs to life and it feels like an awakening of the deepest parts of her. Something is happening to them. It won't be long before she is unable to deny it. They are connected in a way different from before... though Santana cannot sense the very thoughts that give her life and how they form the basis of everything she is, Santana can undoubtedly feel an unknown a side of Brittany, one of silky damp as she feels a heartbeat flutter madly against her splayed fingers.

The unbearable silence breaks when a moan rumbles free from Brittany's chest, deep and guttural and seemingly torn from somewhere hidden away.

They lock eyes and Santana's face burns as she draws away - not for the first time she blesses her heritage as her complexion remains the same while Brittany's turns the shade of fire.

"I-"

"What-"

Both of them break off and look away together; Santana wipes her hand upon her robes while Brittany refrains the urge to lick her lips to search for another taste of her friend. Just hints of her have her craving more, the desire to know what the other parts of her taste - her lips, the hinge of her jaw, the valley of her chest. Her dreams are haunted by sandy skin and dark eyes.

Brittany clears her throat and scrambles to her pockets in an attempt to break the atmosphere. "I have something for you." Her tongue darts out and upon it is the salt of Santana's sweat, musky and deep with the a lingering bitter tang. Her clothes smell of wormwood and her lips carry the stain of juniper from some ritual unknown to the warrior, the vacant gaze in her eyes giving her Goddess away. She seems tense, troubled - even now her hand floats to the artifact concealed in her clothes.

Santana perks up despite her embarrassment and attempts an intrigued smile. When Brittany turns to rummage in her pack it becomes genuine, and she leans forward when she catches the glimpse of luster between her fingers.

"Close your eyes."

She wants to object but Brittany's smile is so easy and carefree that she sighs dramatically, clamping her lids shut and thrusting out her hands. When Brittany laughs at her pout she wiggles her fingers impatiently, tapping her feet on the grass, remembering the secret gleam hidden in her cupped palms.

Something cold places itself in her outstretched hands. Her brow furrows and she carefully cracks open her eyes to Brittany's nervous grin. She blindly rolls the object over in her fingers before looking down.

She spies the biggest ruby she's ever had the pleasure of seeing.

Easily the size of her curled fist, she sucks air between her teeth and twists it over and over, fingers skating over the impossibly smooth surface. A million reflections of herself stare back from its angles and she studies the twisting impressions within its heart with something close to awe. "Brittany... what..."

"Grandfather had it from one of his raids a long time ago when they destroyed a caravan of men that all look like Mikhail. He gave to me as a gift, but... you know I was never one for pretty things. I much prefer new weapons and the like. So I decided to give it to you." She knows Santana probably understood a third of what she said, but her voice is hopeful, fading at the end when all she receives is silence.

(It remains to be said that she begged Grandfather for it, for she knew Santana would cherish it like nothing else.)

"Do... do you like it?"

When Santana looks up her eyes are impossibly light but it has nothing to do with the sun.

"Of course..." She says something in Spanish, all suave whispering letters stringing together into the thanks she can't manage to express in these faltering verbalizations. It sounds like shadow in the best of ways and Brittany can't help but think men would die to have her lips against their ear. "It beautiful. Why me?"

"Beautiful people need beautiful things, Santana."

Her companion bashfully draws her eyes away and instead plays with the tip of her staff. Her fingers nervously trace the twining tendrils of wood that wind over and over on themselves to form a knotted mess, gnarled and springy, sharp upon the edges. The ruby flashes bright against the dull of the ash.

Until it moves.

Santana nearly drops her staff as the pieces unfurl slowly with the groaning of an old man, spreading out to the sun in all directions before curling around her fingers; she numbly allows it to drag the ruby from her grasp with greedy intent, winding itself through and around until the gemstone sets itself upon the crown of her weapon. They both stare as it settles again, grumbling and creaking before going still, as solid as if it had never moved. With the stone now comes the throb of a heady pulse that rushes its way through the base of the staff and into Santana's arm, flushing warmth into her system and filling her with something of a slow burn.

_Brittany's heartbeat,_ she realizes with a start, _this belongs to her._

"We connect now, see?" Santana takes Brittany's hand in her own and presses the lighter fingertips to the parts of the ruby that can be seen through the tendrils of wood that have made their home around it. "Piece of you here, with me."

Brittany looks at her; the sudden vulnerability of her eyes, the careful smile of her lips, the subtle way she leans into her, and thinks that she would never want to be anywhere else.

* * *

><p>There is a cloud over her friend, dark and brooding, the longer goes the day. Brittany accompanies her down into the heart of town and watches her sweep through the stalls, touching the herbs, muttering to herself and tapping her forehead before shaking her head and moving on. With Brittany's aid she buys a robe of white cotton, soft and pliant to the touch, that makes her skin burn with a dark light. Herbs fill her basket as she looks and wonders and murmurs until it is filled with bursting and she is awash in all the scents that nature has to offer.<p>

Something moves her from beyond; twice Brittany catches the imprint of ghostly arms settling like a shroud over Santana's own and twisting her limbs. She listens always, tilting her head and humming her agreement. The villagers eye her suspiciously but for the first time it bothers her little.

Eventually they arrive at Brittany's house. Santana hugs her and something feels strangely final about it - she nearly crushes Brittany's strong ribs and presses her face into the ridge of her collarbone, inhaling the familiar spearmint she constantly has upon her breath. It calms her as lanky arms wrap themselves hesitantly around her waist and whisper nonsensical comforts. Brittany wishes to take away her pain but knows not if it comes from another, or simply from within.

"Stay out?" Santana asks, glancing over at the earthen house. If Mikhail has done his job a steaming tub awaits her and the herbs she totes in the basket around her arm. The sun is setting - she dreads doing this with the embrace of the night. Brittany looks torn - something is _wrong_ and she can't fix it - but a single finger laying itself along her lips pushes her to nothing more than a mute nod. Santana smiles but it is faint, whispering a thanks before disappearing inside and leaving her to stare after her with a feeling of growing dread.

Once the door shuts Santana exhales a heavy breath, leaning against the door. Despite all the precautions she takes, she can feel the excitement of the thing lingering within the scroll - it writhes and whispers and urges her forward, impatient and ready but willing to wait. Her hands tremble minutely when she folds her new robe and places it on the table before unbuckling her sash and laying it over top. Her boots slide off next - the toggles snapping off one by one as she neatly lays them below upon the ground. Santana's old robe comes off then, placed side by side, leaving her naked in the glow from the lanterns overhead. She shivers but sits upon a stool, drawing her herbs closer to herself and fishing for her mortar and pestle with the comforting thump of her necklace between her breasts.

_Be still, priestess._

Santana closes her eyes and swallows to reorient herself. She had purposefully placed her scroll as far away from her body as possible in hopes it would soften its call. Within her cup she places elderberry, rosemary and tarragon - as she grinds she allows her mind to wander. Will this work? Somehow she believes it doubtful. Styrr is without a doubt more powerful than she, adept in the intricacies of death and its friends while she is the one who cherishes the living. One scroll, surely, cannot give her the power she requires to weave muscle back over bone like it is nothing but ivy twining over stone.

Fragrance rises around her and the familiar smell of nature allows her to finally relax, scraping the power now in her mortar into a small cloth pouch, tying it tightly before dropping it into the water. She allows it to steep, much like tea, before stepping over the lip of the basin and submerging herself.

Goosebumps curl over every available part of her skin as the water soaks up into her hair and around the bends of her fingers and between her toes. Santana shudders and sinks down further until only part of her face is visible. Her locks fan outwards like an oil-slick - heavy and dark, casting shadows over her hidden body. Inside she loses the contours of her form and becomes an extension of the water.

_Goddess, _she calls within her head_, with fire I heat this water, that which makes air and eventually pours down to the earth._ _I ask for your protection this night to ward away the demons which __will try to take residence within and around me. I ask for your blessing so that I might be successful and wash away the pains of her injuries. I ask for your guidance so that I do not fall into the corruption that this act will ultimately bring. Let fortune smile on me today, for with hope, tonight will bring the brightest of celebrations. _

A slow light fills her chest as she lounges into the protective waters. The blessings of the herbs and of her Mother seep into her skin to wear like a shield, ever-present and powerful as she dunks her face into the basin and scrubs until her forehead feels raw. Without her mark she is naked, but it is a required sacrifice.

_Thank you, Goddess. Thank you, elements. I take your blessing into my heart._

When she rises, some of her doubt has gone.

Still dripping, the priestess takes the linen hanging upon the side and wraps her sodden hair into it. Water pools along the wooden floor when she takes the lantern from its place upon the wall and opens the little door to coax the flame from its home. Though the bath is for protection, the pine she lights with care is for purification. Upon the air she tastes its burn and the resulting moan of discomfort from the dark presence that has taken to following her always. She waves the crushed remnants with an almost arrogance defiance, stalking clockwise around the room and even sprinkling some of its ash upon the scroll itself.

"Leave me, darkness!" She calls and adds more and more until it is so thick with smoke she can hardly breathe, the taste of pine thick along her tongue and lingering far inside her nose. "I will use you and leave you to your shadows. My will belongs to Ataecina!" When the cloying scent becomes too much she gently extinguishes the needles and places the rest in one of her pockets, shrugging on her angel-white robe until it settles properly around her shoulders. In the growing gloom of dusk, she glows.

Santana ties her belt upon her waist and takes a small crumble of ochre in her palm - she has grown to mix it with bear's blood; it is sticky upon her skin as she traces the now familiar symbol on her forehead, but it seems stronger than usual, swelling within until the white power roars inside her with fervour. The icy cold of the scroll seeps into her skin when she takes it but the warmth inside wards it away.

She walks briskly through the cooling August air to Betar's longhouse. People part for her and her new determination like the curious sea, whispering and pointing as she strides through the streets with a grim expression. Though Ataecina's presence gives her hope, she dares not reveal how nervous she truly is. Playing with things she is unable to control bodes ill for the village in its entirety.

_Come to me, little one._ Santana shakes her head brusquely and curls her lips into an irritated snarl. For a moment she contemplates shoving it in her pocket but thinks better of it with the way her fingers freeze closed over the pages. _Be silent! I listen not to your songs._

Her burning eyes fill the whole room when she sweeps into the building. Betar looks up and his eyebrows raise at Santana - there is something different about her and the aura she basks within; her cloak floats away from her upon an invisible wind, something behind her eyes causes them to glow. He recognizes the ruby now twined within her staff and how it pulses with a gentle light and thinks only Brittany could orchestrate such a thing. "What are you doing, Santana?"

When she turns to him chills rack his spine. Her knuckles turn white over the strange scroll she holds and though her voice it is calm, it is unbelievably cold. "Heal. Stay from room." Her gaze scans over the collective mass. "All you. Away."

She leaves them speechless but shows them not how her confidence crumples into a shaky exhale when away from view.

_Do not let my blessing make you arrogant, Santana._

With much more hesitant steps does she approach her friend's room. So close to her goal, she feels the influence of the thing she holds seep into her skin and turn her sluggish, calling her forward while all at once pulling her away. The paradox of its want causes her head to ache and she squeezes her eyes shut in pain. Maybe she should just return to Brittany's. Whatever _this _is, all the cold and the dark and the voices, it worms its way past her blessing and into the depths of her, the scared part she tries so desperately to hide from existence. She reaches for Ataecina but she is unbelievably far away. _I should go back... this is a bad idea._

She makes to do just that but a voice makes her freeze. "Priestess?" Santana curses under her breath and turns to Reinn with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes?"

"What are you doing?"

_I have no idea._ "Leaving."

"Oh." His brow furrows. "Are you sure? Mother misses you recently."

She sighs. "Okay. Can... can you go, Reinn?"

"But-"

"Go, please!"

She sees the hurt upon his face and pinches the bridge of her nose. "Sorry, sorry. Do something different. Alone."

Something resembling excitement lights up his face, and she would smile if not for the growing knot of dread coiling icily in her stomach. "Will it help her?"

"Hopefully." Her hands reach his shoulders and she gives him a playful little push. "Now go! See later, yes?"

Reinn bounds off and she's left standing there in the hallway with her staff in one hand and the scroll in the other. The two opposites of the spectrum cradled in her collective grasp. "Oh Goddess, what did I get myself into?" She sighs heavily before inching her way inside the room. Abandoned... good. Santana approaches the figure upon the bed and offers a small smile along with her soft footsteps.

She looks up from her stitching with a surprised hum but smiles at seeing the priestess. "Ah, Santana! A bit late for a walk, no?"

The priestess shrugs and absently fiddles with the rawhide wrapping on her staff. So close to her goal, the cold has spread from her fingers up to her shoulder in a sort of creeping numbness she can only match with falling into the fjord early March. The lethargy had dulled her down to her very bones - this energy is misplaced and entirely wrong but fills her, none the less, with movement.

"Are you well?" The older woman frowns and makes to feel her forehead, but her arm cannot lift high enough. Santana catches it gently with one hand and places it back down in her lap.

"I... I want..." Her knowledge of her language fails her and she scowls, running her tongue along her teeth. "Help. Help you, Gynna. You let me?"

Gynna tilts her head curiously and runs her thumb along the top of Santana's palm. Her eyes run over the apparel, the newly done markings, the soft scent of pine needles clinging to her clothing. Over the months she has learned to take Santana at her word and doesn't even hesitate before nodding - they are bound with something deeper than mutual displacement. "I trust you, priestess. Do what you can."

Santana coaxes her to sit up and face the wall. A single lantern casts an eerie glow with soft shadows as she shuts the door firmly and with a final thump. Goosebumps prickle her skin.

She relights the pine needles, pacing clockwise until she grows dizzy, muttering over and over to herself as it burns low and eventually runs out. So thick is the smoke that Gynna's form is hazy from the other side of the room and she appears as some sort of monster from the depths of the darkness - no sun crawls in through the window now that she has pulled the thick hide over the hole and they are submerged in shadow. Santana gingerly lays her staff against the wall - the ruby throbs and the talismans glow to provide feeble light - and kneels down, cradling the weathered face in both hands.

"Close eyes, okay? Never open. Not _once_."

Blue eyes disappear and Santana lets out a huff of air, lighting a single red candle and places it beside the bed. Finally, _finally,_ she shakily takes the scroll in both hands, fingers poised on each end, watching the aura seethe off from it in an angry black mist. _Is this what I truly want?_ Her muscles tremble as she fights the urge to open it even as creeping tendrils prod at the beginnings of her mind, urging her to open and let in the forbidden knowledge hidden within the vellum. The priestess glances up once, eyes roaming over the now bared back - still ruined, still deformed - before bracing herself and unravelling the scroll.

With an almost lazy drift the nonsensical symbols float together to form words that pulse a much too slow heartbeat, deep and dark and endless. The ends lick at Santana's fingers and dance upon the edges of her skin; wherever it touches, she has to stifle the groan of pain.

_Do it. _

That voice. The one that follows her in sleep. The sentences pull together with more urgency now, filling the space, squirming at disjointed angles and almost lifting off the page. Santana licks her lips and opens her mouth to read.

_The sacrifice first. _

With one hand keeping the vellum open the other drifts down to the ceremonial knife at her belt, fingering the handle before pulling it out with the quiet whistle of sharp metal to place it between her teeth. Santana remembers what Styrr did mere weeks ago, how the blood bloomed and pooled in the creases of his palm, his face not even flickering in pain before the cursed _thing_ drank from him and granted him his wish. She hesitates, exhaling, pressing her shin to the older woman's spine for faint comfort before drawing her palm across the blade in one deep incision.

Pain spears up to her elbow as she whimpers and lets the bloodied knife fall from her lips and clatter to the floor. Perhaps it was too deep... crimson pools in her hand and spills down her wrist, splattering upon the floor and staining her pristine garb a dark, rusted hue. The quiet presence within her skull grows louder with the appearance of her essence and she knows not how to deny it - instead she turns her eyes back to the scroll who has stilled its writing to make it legible.

"I allow you within to make her whole  
>The price I offer, a piece of my soul<br>So I give you my hand and you give me your kiss  
>And together we will stand on the brink of abyss."<p>

A moment of stillness before it all splinters apart.

Santana howls in agony as something cold forces its way through the gash in her bleeding hand and burrows its way through her arm. Her flesh swells and bulges grotesquely with tendrils that travel underneath her skin, suckling greedily at the blood that pours, before wrapping like a weight around the bones of her forearm. Numb fingers drop the scroll as her other palm jerks, slapping onto the ravaged wound until her fingernails bite into the edges and her friend whimpers in pain. Their breath has begun to mist as frost crawls along the walls.

_Yes, priestess! _

It pulses inside of her once before dissolving into foul-running liquid, sinking its way further and further into the stream of her blood. It invades her brain and wraps its embrace around her skull. Santana feels like she's coming apart at the seams, this time for the worse; she feels infinite and tiny all at once as it feeds to her the extent of its power, twisting and tearing apart the center of her chest as it pulls her off balance and taints all it touches. She sees chaos in all parts of the world - war, savagery, rape, famine - all of its whim and knows that if she so tried it could be hers as well. The buzzing in her ears increases to a roar as she writhes and growls with saliva dribbling down the open seal of her lips, eyes open but unseeing, frantically searching through the madness of her mind for a cause to the end.

The cold within her flows from one side to another, searching an exit, whispering to her even as it freezes her muscles and ices over her blood. In the whirlwind of its power she hears the scream of a million voices, reaching for her, moaning in a thousand languages as the flesh of her unbroken palm opens into a jagged wound and pours forth rolling shadow.

_Accept me!_

_No!_ Santana thinks even as it spreads itself out over the pale expanse of Gynna's back like rot. The body underneath her shivers but she gives a command to keep still - somewhere between a snarl and a plea, Gynna consents and as the darkness seeps into her broken muscles she can _feel_ her bones, the ache of her injury and the heat of her core as it calls and booms with a nervous heartbeat. The darkness greedily centers itself onto that pulse, wrapping its endless presence around the organ and feeding from the life that keeps her here with Santana.

With herculean effort she draws the corruption back, reeling it in like rope until it twines itself visibly around her fingers and cuts into her skin. _Heal her! _It worms through and around until slime turns into fiber and fiber turns into muscle and it knits itself into her body, spreading and expanding in a hard swath that anchors itself and melts seamlessly together with the existing flesh. Bones rebuild themselves from nothing and she is godly - she snaps the flimsy vertebrae into place one by one, tugging back and around until tendons form from the tips of her fingers and she is creating _life_, something that not even Ataecina can do with such efficiency. Its power fills her to bursting and spills over until new skin blossoms, pristine and untouched. Beautiful.

_See what you can do with me?_

Yes, yes... she is more than human, more than herself, more than _anything_ - endless and divine and invincible. The tendrils reform inside and she feels them stroke the inside of her throat, sticky and cold, testing their new home for resistance. There is a nagging feeling on the periphery of her thoughts that stops her from giving in completely, a soft warmth that pushes away the deepest dark and keeps her anchored in the waking world.

_Come back to me, Santana._

_ Goddess?_

_ Come back to the light._

The distraction allows her tenuous connection to the darkness to wobble and snap - the images in her head suddenly disgust her, of the eviscerated bodies and the screaming children and the chaos of a burning city. She cries out and pulls away as she throws herself from the bed, where she smacks her head on the ground and clutches it in pain, shivering as the frigid movement within her flows back from her damaged hand and spews out onto the dirt floor. The _thing_ groans its discontent as it leaves the warmth of her body, dragging knives along the insides of her veins, whispering curses and promises of return when the shadows lessen and the lantern regains its light.

Nothing but the laboured sound of her breathing bounces against the walls. She closes her eyes, exhausted, and leans her temple against the dirt as she cradles her throbbing hand to her chest. It will be hours later before she notices the gash has simply disappeared.

"P-priestess?" Warm hands against her jaw and she rolls greedily into the touch, groaning low in her throat as she meets soft thighs. Her eyes flutter back open into wizened blue and she frowns in confusion at the tears glistening beneath Gynna's lids.

"What-"

"You healed me." Shaking hands stroke matted hair from her face. Gynna turns her still bared back slowly, exposing to Santana a neat, black line running where the crater of missing flesh should be. Captivated, Santana carefully traces the scar with almost reverence with the thought that _she_ did that, she healed what was forever broken and unable to be changed. But... was it truly worth that madness?

Gynna's face says it was.

"Thank you," she whispers, brushing a kiss to Santana's sweaty forehead. The ochre of her mark rubs off on her lips when she then leans down to repeat the action on her cheekbone, "thank you, thank you, thank you."

Reinn inches in through the doorway, fearful of the sounds that had drifted from underneath the door. It is freezing in the small space - his flesh instantly prickles with bumps as he glances around, taking in the melted candle, the flickering lantern, and the heavy scent of pine musk. Blood splatters the ground as Santana shakes on earth, cradled by his mother and her two unhindered arms. Truly a miracle... he silently joins them and starts to carefully wipe the drying saliva off the hinge of her jaw with a betraying tenderness.

Caught in the aftermath, nobody notices the trail of thick, onyx slime oozing from Santana's right ear.

~.~.~.~.~

She dreams of demons that night.

After dragging her shaking, battered body up the hill and submerging herself in Brittany's underground home, she had thrown herself into bed and buried her face in the blankets, casting the now-silent scroll as far from her as she could manage. Even its silhouette in the shadow of the room made her sick. She barely registered Brittany creeping in long after dark, or the worried fingers that brushed across her brow.

It was only after her companion settled into her sheets did she drop off into troubled sleep.

_Long fingers reaching through the foliage. Grey skin, glistening bones. A whisper of thought pushed aside for the burning in his lower belly that seemed to propel him forward despite the resounding laws of nature saying __**no.**_

_ God, he was so hungry. _

_ It destroyed all semblance of rational thought until he did nothing but stumble blindly through the roots and the grass, ignoring the feelings that would once make him stop, rotting feet stepping in a rough, shuffling gait to places unknown. Though it was pitch black and his milked-over eyes saw little in the shadow of the forest, he knew where he was going. He could feel it. The pulse of life called him from far beyond what his chaotic thoughts allowed - he breathed into blackening lungs and scented the blood and the flesh so sweet, so close. Soon his hunger would quiet and he could think again. _

_ He was the pride of his creation. Before, all the others were weak and useless, turning to dust at the first bite of a blade. Only he could withstand their fear; his curling skin hosted the ragged gashes of men taken with horror, split open to the muscle and sinew where he bled bountiful black and it __stained the dirtied remnants of his clothing. Nothing could penetrate the haze of his hunger and make him hurt, and he would crush their fingers in his frost-giant grip when they failed to make him stumble. Vaguely he remembered what it was like to be pained, when he was like them, peach-pale flesh and tremulous heartbeat that went thu-thump, thu-thump, before the dark came and then no sound at all._

_ Master brought back his senses but not his noise and the beat of his chest was still, worthless as it rotted away in the cavity of his sternum. He lived for nothing but Master and the hunger now - if this existence could be called living, with reaching hands and open mouths and the __**wanting.**__ Oh, the wanting. He could be content with everything else (if he remembered how to feel) but the wanting drew __his scattered brain apart and turned him into little more than an animal. _

C_lose, now. So close. From there he could feel the heat humming from the little house and the bodies that lay within, slumbering freely among their plants and dried meat and rusted weapons. It caused his skin to itch and his tongue to swell, his drool seeping in a thick stream down his chin, low rattling moan floating through the air and out into the night. In between his teeth was the remnants of his last kill, pieces of skin lodged into the holes, brushing teasingly against his lips whenever his jaw would care to move. The people inside shifted uneasily in their dreams - he stilled and they retreated back into silence._

_ His feet took him to their closed door. The wanting had turned into a needing, a white-hot requirement that eclipsed the cold in his blood and the shadow that writhed to move his body, and all thoughts of another life of comforts and people is wiped away as his broken nails touch the wooden frame._

_ But him? He's so much smarter than his brothers. Instead of clawing feebly against the surface and waking the occupants, his numb hands trailed down to the handle, wrapping his decaying fingers around the metal and tugging until it gave to him with little more than a weak moan. _

_ All the smells and the heavy sound of their sleep-breaths overwhelmed his already feeble mind. The hunger rumbled up from his belly into the rest of him; poisoning his head and burning his limbs and spilling his groan from his ragged vocal chords. They stiffened and in the dark he saw their eyelids flutter, on the precipice of waking and asleep, somehow sensing his presence through the spider-silk veneer of dream. He contemplated staggering towards the man and his bulk of muscle resembling a bear, but once again his hunger triumphed over his reason and his fingers gripped upon the shoulders of the nearby woman._

_ Her eyes snapped open and she froze like an ancient glacier, heartbeat stuttering jack-rabbit fast, as his mouth gaped wide and strings of spittle dripped down, cold and slimy, onto her cheek. His breath smelled like rot and old blood and it finally gave her wind to scream just as his powerful teeth clamped down on the tender trunk of her neck. _

_ His jaw muscles bulged as he sawed through tendons and vessels, scraping bone with his bottom teeth as his fingers left heliotrope bracelets around her joints. When he reared back her flesh followed him until it separated from her with a squishy snap and he swallowed the thick, salty substance greedily, groaning low and pleased in his throat as she sobbed and thrashed on the bed slowly staining black in the light of the moon. Behind him he felt a presence until a hard fist crashed into the side of his head and knocked him hard against the wall._

_ Wood met his cheek and he turned slowly to face his new opponent. An animal of a man with a __dull sword and bared teeth, blessed red pumping fast close to the surface of his skin, tempting him though it still flowed freely from his wife. His hands went out, seeking, gore falling from the open seal of his lips as he stumbled towards the man._

_ The sword swung down and bit into the grey expanse of his forearm - he felt his flesh split for the metal but none of his nerves registered the pain and it allowed him to continue forward, shuffling over dead feet as he grabbed at the light beard and pulled forward. _

_ Once, he had heard Master say that his grip resembled that of a lynx whose teeth had already __sunk into its prey; he pulled and pulled and the man was helplessly reeled towards him, arms bared over his face at last second as his sword once again sliced into the cold flesh of his side. His mouth opened and bones snapped as his teeth worked through his forearm to mangle until his jaws clanked together and he drew back with the dribble of blood down his chin turned into a fountain. His prey roared and cursed but he simply tried to strike again. But he had __**learned**_ _and Master would be proud as he grabbed the incoming wrist and used his unholy strength to freeze its descent, halting the blow and simply using his grip to seal the man's fate. His body was heavy as it fell to the floor and leaked blood under the old boards._

_ In the silence that had descended, he swayed amongst the heavy smell of copper and taste of iron, taken by the retreat of the hunger that cleared his mind and let him think again. Some small, human part of him said to be disgusted - in everything, how he thoughtlessly took their lives and ate the flesh and felt joy in the feeling of their bodies succumbing to his power. _

_ But as he turned, he caught a silhouette in the corner of the room. His eyes narrowed in on the small, huddled form that stifled soft whimpers, one hand buried in what he believed to be blond hair. A child. Smaller, fragile. They always tasted the sweetest, but really, he wasn't concerned with that. When the little one looked up into his inhuman face, with the falling skin and the blood smeared so thick it turned black, he blanched white with fear and scrambled back into the body of his dead father. He stumbled slowly after him. In the light of the moon he thought that the child looked like somebody he used to know - for a moment he tried for a smile that felt wrong on his dead lips. Again the human part of him whispered its revulsion, but he could see the butterfly pulse of the boy upon the hollow of his neck, and as he descended upon him he thought nothing at all._

"Stop it! Just breathe, _vinur_, just breathe... everything's okay, wake up for me..."

Santana gasps and snaps her eyes open with almost violent force, hands hooked into claws grasping at the flimsy material of Brittany's sleep-shirt. The dream that she knows was more than that runs through her - in her mouth she tastes blood and bone until bile churns in her stomach.

"Brittany..."

Her friend reads her expression and flails for a bucket just as Santana throws up, head hanging into the wooden container, warm fingers brushing her sweat-matted bangs back from her face with care. It feels almost like rejuvenation; Santana heaves all the remnants of the heavy dark from her body until she gags a few times but nothing comes out. All the while Brittany draws soothing circles on her back and whispers quiet things in Norse, letting her lean into the crook of her neck when she slumps, heavy with exhaustion.

It has been weeks since they have been this close. Brittany puts down the bucket and loosely wraps her arms around Santana's waist, cradling her tenderly as she feels the other girl's chest heave against her ribs. Santana lets Brittany worry about how much weight she's lost with seeking fingers silently, forehead pressed against her jaw, taking comfort in her sturdy warmth without the creeping stench of death.

"I saw..." It's impossible to put into words; the crunch of cartilage and the rattling moans and the fear, how she shuffled along with its limping gait and felt their life drain away under her hands. She knows it was the work of the shadow - it slipped along the surface of her brain, slick and out of sight, breathing its fetid breath on her thoughts. It lurks even now in the deepest corners of this room, watching, waiting for her fall once more into sleep so it can claim her dreams and turn her consciousness red with unknown blood.

"Saw what?" Brittany prods gently, never halting her gentle motions upon Santana's skin.

In return, Santana heaves herself sitting and crushes their foreheads together.

Brittany inhales sharply as the pictures filter in through her; they are one and what Santana feels she feels, the dream so real she can taste copper on her tongue, hear the gentle inhales of the prey it stalks. She simply doesn't witness it for she is a part of it, the thing that drags and moans and stalks. Her fingers spasm and curl around Santana's arms as the pictures get lost in the rushing sound of Santana's blood through her veins, how the taste of her heartbeat is infinitely more sweet than the ripping flesh. Brittany falls and falls until she wears Santana's skin; she sees the Goddess and her sad smile and Samuel, half-whole and searching; she sees Gynna's room and something that runs down her body like seaweed, wrapping around her limbs and paralysing her; she sees the _draugr_ pulling itself through the forests, hunting for its next meal. Everything meshes together until it is _Santana Santana Santana_ and it is her turn to be laid across the bed and begged to come back with apologetic intentions laced through the letters.

When the priestess lifts her body away Brittany can breathe again, taking in great gasps of air that is laden with Santana's scent, the bath she took earlier still lingering in the roots of her hair and the crooks of her elbows. Her hands touch Santana's shoulders, the falling halo of her hair, silently pulling the girl back into her body and feeling her soft curves match perfectly with her lean angles.

"We tell them tomorrow, okay? We will talk to Father about the vision and hunt it down and kill it, because it is supposed to be dead." A _draugr_ wandering the night, as strong as this one, causes alarm bells to shoot off in her skull. Too many things are happening in such a short amount of time and she thinks of the golden snake, coiled and waiting by her bedside, still stained with blood. Brittany wonders if she has to use it, but too many things scramble for her attention and hurt her head.

So instead she strokes Santana's hair and waits until she relaxes against Brittany's warmth, both of them trembling with the force of their mutual disbelief. "Sleep now." Brittany whispers to her friend, turning them so that Santana can, in a quiet moment of defeat, curl into the larger body and hide her face under Brittany's jaw. She becomes her blanket to ward away the dark. "Sleep."

They don't dream.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N:** Sometimes I wish I could draw. I have so many things to show all of you - the places and the people and the power here! But since I can barely draw a straight line, I'm instead trying to communicate it to you in words. Hopefully it's working. Before we begin, let me say that I so appreciate my beta, **LeMasquerade**, for all the work done amidst university deadlines. This little dream of mine couldn't be done without another critical eye.  
>Also, I now have a tumblr! I have no idea how to work it or where to begin, but I'd love it if you guys dropped me a line. Check my info if you want to chat.<br>Before we get too distracted here, I present to you Chapter 12! (I have a feeling you'll like what happens.)

* * *

><p>Chapter 12<p>

**the storm is coming soon**

**it rolls in from the sea **

** September 2****nd****, 912**

Four deaths.

It took four more deaths for Betar to finally acknowledge the superstitious cries of the surrounding villagers. He looks down upon the man before him, ruddy and out of breath, winded from having run the _rôstir_ it took to reach Kaupang. His clothes are simple, smeared with brine that has permanently worked its way under his fingernails. A sailor with a family scared for their young and defenceless siblings.

"And their bodies?" Betar asks, one hand resting pensively on the pommel of his sword. His mighty brow has furrowed into deep lines as he paces the floorboards, charms swinging haphazardly, clinking against the buckles of his clothes.

He had been warned about this, earlier in the season. Bretagne had come to him with a pale Santana and explained what they saw together; when Santana would stumble in her wording Bretagne would guide her gently back on path, feeding off each other seamlessly until their whole tale had been laid out before him in gruesome detail. The jarl had been hesitant - his people were already stretched thin. To send them out to a tiny coastal town over a few killings and a _völva's _fevered dreams? He promised to look into it, but he saw the disappointment in dark eyes, how Santana had curled her smallest finger around Bretagne's own and silently led her away. Not for the first time, he wishes he had listened.

"Eaten, my jarl. Some of them." He speaks frankly, if perhaps a bit bluntly. "The woman had bites taken from her sides and face, but the two children had just one wound. They died easily."

"The father?"

He grimaces, a phantom of disgust rising up over his broad features. "Annihilated. Parts of him were scattered across the roads and into the trees."

Betar rubs his hand furiously across his eyes and huffs out a deep breath. "Mikhail!" The slender man rises like a ghost and steps silently to the side, awaiting his orders. Not for the first time Betar notices how tight his collar has become. "Fetch Bretagne and Santana. There is something they must do." Mikhail nods once and disappears as quickly as he had arrived, nothing but the creak of the floorboards giving away his presence.

He's waited too long - he feels it in the worried stares of mothers, how they keep their children close by their sides in the night. How they fall to their knees and pray to both the Father-God and the Valkyrja for mercy as the stars show their faces and the beginning of the long wait until dawn begins anew. Talk of demons in the moonlight have become a reality now, raised from its myth into a tangible thing that steals away the breath of life with nothing but a rattling moan.

Yngvarr will disapprove of waiting so long, surely. The Hammer of the North could have dispatched this threat in a matter of hours, a mighty blow of his weapon that brings false gods to their knees. But the warrior grows old - Betar sees how he limps, how Santana tenderly cares for the ankle gone swollen and stiff, how his boots have changed to accommodate his flesh. In time, when glorious battle is on the horizon and the fields are stained red with blood, the Hammer will land his final kills before being swept away to the halls of Valhalla, where his daughter awaits his touch once again. A sheild-maiden from birth until death - no other place would have settled for Bretagne's mother. A force of nature to be reckoned with.

(Just like her daughter.)

The sound stolen from the room announces the return of his servant. Those lined against the walls watch the two girls with a certain amount of awed trepidation; all have heard of the wound Santana healed with nothing but the heat of her palms, sewing broken flesh back together into its pristine, nubile state. Many have come to her begging aid, and all have been turned down. In her eyes is something hesitant that prevents her healing hands from laying themselves upon the injured.

"You called for us, _faðir_?" Bretagne's eyes are inquisitive as she stands in close to receive Santana's warmth. Things have not improved between father and daughter, but nor have they gotten worse. A stand-still and the truce before the slaughter.

They hold gazes for a moment before Betar looks away to watch the setting sun as it sinks below the mountains. The days have become shorter, the nights cold and unforgiving. Frost nips at the crops of the farmers, and the first frenzy as the men set out for loot to tide them over the long, hard winter to come. "Yes - the both of you are to go to Breiðvík, a half-sun's walk from Kaupang. The _draugr_ walks the forests there." It's impossible not to see how Bretagne bends down minutely to translate into Santana's ear, her fingers brushing the raven-black locks from her slender shoulders, never taking her eyes off her father. Santana's littlest finger tightens around Bretagne's own at the mention of the beast - everything about her draws in until he can see nary the gleam of her eyes from underneath her feathered hood. "The both of you are to find it, and kill it. Do you understand?"

His daughter's hand brushes sub-consciously over the hilt of her axe before replying. (Truly his own child.) "How are we to find a monster in such an unfamiliar place?"

"This man here," he gently pushes the sailor towards Bretagne, "lives in Breiðvík, and will assist you with whatever you require."

Betar sees the hesitation in her face. There has always been something about the dead that Bretagne hates, ever since she was a little girl. It's impossible for her to explain in words (a burning town, lifeless corpses, bloodstained blonde) but it is shown in every shaky swipe of her spear, missing its target as her opponent stumbles closer on leaden limbs. She opens her mouth to object but before a single word comes out, Santana tugs her closer, rising up on her toes to mutter into her ear.

He hears something that suspiciously sounds like _you promised_ the second before her resistance visibly crumples before his eyes, her lips turning into a helpless kind of amusement as she sighs and nods her agreement. Betar's eyebrows raise high upon his forehead as his daughter; his stubborn, free-willed daughter, clasps the hand of the sailor in greeting and asks for him to show them the way.

From under her hood, Santana smirks.

* * *

><p>In reality, Ruaidhrí Flanagan is little more than a boy. At his current eighteen summers, he is all gangly limbs and a voice that refuses to settle with a mop of messy brown hair and curious eyes. They had sent him from his little town as he was the one with the longest stride and lasting wind - he could run for hours with nothing but the hiss of his own breathing and the gentle hum of nature to follow in his footsteps. Though the roads would do for horses, one must be wary of bandits on such an open place, and he chose instead to run through the lowlands by the sea, crossing once or twice through the gorges that the great fjords carved into the earth many years ago.<p>

Though his family is not originally from this frozen place, he considers it his home as much as his father does Hibernia. He was one of the few to resist the missionaries as they came; their heritage as druids was notorious and proud. Ever since he was a babe he remembers his father garbed in blinding white, gathering the villagers from their tiny town nestled upon the lip of the mighty _Aillte an Mhothair, _cleaving sacred mistletoe from the tops of the trees before his sickle would cut the throats of two white bulls. It is vague now, blurred, but the scent of animal blood still gives him the awed feeling of watching his father, so powerful and in control as the ritual continues. Those cliffs used to dwarf him, but ever since arriving in Nor Veg and witnessing the massive mountains this land houses, he thinks less frequently of them now and the fresh air that would ruffle his hair into knots.

What remains the same is the hardiness of the people. Ruaidhrí sees much of his own kin in the fair-complexioned villagers that dwell in the hearts of the mountains and in the body of the plains. Though they suffer through devastating winters, looming threat of war, and even raids from their brothers, they carry on much like his town did (before the priests came).

He sees it in Bretagne now, the determined gleam to her eyes that turns them hard, like the sea frozen over into ice. In how she murmurs her absent-minded thanks as the strange man with the slanted eyes - Mikhail? what a strange name for a foreign man - hands her a pack and clasps her hands together briefly with his own, winding one arm around her neck to pull her into a tangled hug. She reciprocates without shame, holding him tight against her and brushing wistfully at his collar as she draws away. "That must hurt." He hears her say, sympathy great in her ice-water eyes. "When I return I will ask a new one for you."

His smile is grateful. "Always so kind."

The woman next to him hums her agreement. It is her that Ruaidhrí is both drawn to and repelled from at once. Everything about her is alluring; the curves readily visible under the grey of her robes, the night within her hair, the constant smirk twisted faintly upon her lips. But what truly draws him is the void of her eyes. She looks like the _Morrígan_ does, knowing and powerful, feathers scattered about her head. The Phantom Queen, of whom his father only talked about in the most hushed of voices.

(But there is a darkness there. It eclipses the light and casts her shadow longer than should ever be seen.)

Bretagne approaches him then, spear secured firmly to her large pack, braid winding down the subtle strength of her right shoulder. "We leave whenever you wish, sailor." She pauses, running her tongue along her teeth. "Surely you have a different name? It would be strange to call you that for however long we stay in your home."

He smiles nervously - Bretagne towers over him and makes him feel like one of the Fae caught in their little holes. "Ruaidhri." One eyebrow raises in question. "That is my name, like you asked."

"Ruah-rhuaa-" The taller one frowns, twisting her lips at one side. "This must have been how you felt learning our tongue." She mutters to the priestess beside her, who snorts ungracefully into her palm.

"You could call me Rory?" (His mother is the sole one to have claim to that nickname, but she can have it if she wants. She can have everything.)

"Rory?" She mulls it over for a second before grinning brightly. "Yes, I like that. _Rory._ Well then, Rory, lead the way!" Santana beside her clicks her tongue in exasperation, tapping her long staff once on the ground as she nudges her friend in the ribs. "Forget something, Britt?"

Bretagne pauses for a moment in confusion, twisting backwards to glance at her pack. "... No?"

Santana sighs and turns to the mountains - a great inhale of breath sucks between her teeth, and at the right angle it seems she swells with its girth. "Sandalio!" Her yell echoes over the roofs of the low-lying houses, barrelling upwards and dispersing itself all over the village. Everyone pauses for a moment to eye the girl who has now retreated nervously under the hood of her cloak before resuming their tasks. Moments later, a small furry blur streaks towards them, pink tongue lolling excitedly from its mouth. Bretagne scratches the back of her neck sheepishly while her friend rolls her eyes fondly at the display.

"I knew that."

"Of course you did." She turns to Ruaidhri, who seems to shrink under her gaze. She frowns. "Are we go soon?"

The sun sits high in the sky, beaming the last of its fading warmth upon the trio. Winter has ever so slowly begun to crawl into the edges of the land, biting upon the roots of the crops and the noses of the livestock. Though it is bright and chases away the darkness, a crisp wind blows past - Santana shudders and winds her cloak tighter around herself. If there is something she misses most dearly about Iberia, it would be the unchanging warmth of the seasons. She remembers her surprise when she stepped foot into Aarhus and witnessed blankets of white coating the land with nary a speck of dirt in sight. (It took an unfortunate tumble for her to learn that snow, white beautiful, is rather unpleasant.)

"If we set out now, it is possible to make it back to Breiðvík by nightfall. With the rumours, it would be... unwise to spend the night in the forest."

(Santana remembers the darkness and Brittany remembers the blood. They shiver in unison and nod with mutual agreement.)

Brittany beckons with her hand - Santana winds her littlest finger with the other girl's and looks expectantly at Rory, who hurries to catch up as they begin the trek from the town. Sandalio bounds at their heels, whipping excitedly from one place to another, barking at all the oddities and bustling people. Eyja waves from her little house that rises above the ground like a sleeping giant. When Santana waves in return, her rune throbs softly at her hip.

They meet a road that winds its way through the mountains, curving around its base with the imprint of horse hooves clear upon the ground. Though Santana has never been out of Kaupang's boundaries it is obvious the trail is well-loved, uneven wheel-treads showing the route of many a merchant.

However, Rory pulls them to the side not even a half _rôst _from departure and gestures to the forest flanking them to either side. "We will travel unseen through here." He says, brushing away branches and ducking through low-hanging leaves. "There is talk of bandits upon the main trails, and we are few to their many."

The density of their foliage is something Santana has never before seen. Great angry scores mark the trunks of the whimpering trees, some even bent over on their side from the force of impact. _Auroch,_ Brittany informs her as her fingers go to touch the weeping wounds, rubbed raw and split open from massive horns. In her mind's eye she sees a mighty beast of brown pelt snorting from the depths of its chest, eyes open and glaring. The native people here, far to the North with their thick furs and faces cracked from the cold, have learned to respect the beast and give it the distance it requires - many of their hunting dogs have been claimed by its mighty hooves and glistening horns.

Santana blinks as its virile rage seeps in through the marks it has left behind; her pulse races and her breathing stutters momentarily as she sucks in the scent of its fury.

"Okay?" Brittany murmurs close enough so that Rory doesn't hear. (Meant for them alone.)

The priestess shakes her head once to clear herself of the animalistic fog. "Fine." To distract herself from the life seething around her, she turns instead to the nervous sailor who trails behind. "How long in forest? Danger here."

Rory glances around to avoid her gaze. (Is it something she said?) "It would be better if we stayed here until we reach home. I almost got caught in a bandit passing earlier, and they were busy taking the goods from a few men," he grimaces subtly, "and their wives."

Santana brows furrow in concern but Brittany shakes her head and distracts him instead. "Tell us about Breiðvík, Rory. Surely there is a reason the _draugr_ has chosen your town as its target."

He frowns. "You mean to say we do something wrong?"

"No, no. I mean yes, but... no." She sends a pleading look to Santana who simply shrugs and whistles for Sandalio absently. "Forget what I say. What is Breiðvík like, sailor?"

It's hard for him to accurately sum up a sleepy little town in as many words as its population. Kaupang is by the sea, surely - but can he describe the salt upon the air and the gentle hush of the waves against their sandy shores, or the soft chime of the boats as they rock upon the midnight tide? They scarcely receive any visit of much renown. Being tucked away upon the edge of a fjord, small yet magnificent, keeps them from the prying eyes of any seeking jarls or marauding thieves. Fishing ships sail away into the rising kiss of the sun and return with its last breath of the day. It is a simple life; his father can practice in quiet and without fear, their religion meshing seamlessly with their gods and goddesses into something else entirely - he glances left to Santana, where every footstep she takes is shadowed by so many ghosts of all different sizes and intent.

(A woman, beautiful and serene. A black void, whispering its thoughts. Countless dead, moaning for respite.)

"It is much like your town, simply smaller. We have trade. Fishermen. Warriors. We are not a fighting village, but we will defend what is ours."

Years ago a raid sailed fast into the little port, surprising the occupants by unloading fair-skinned men with roaring voices and flashing swords. The water stained red with blood before the people of the village drove them back into the ocean, howling curses and complaints with the jab of an angry spear. Since then the tides have been calm, sweeping in no new enemies for them to defeat. Instead, the fear haunts the forest.

"We refuse to go into the forests for fear of what we will find. It harms both our people and our faith..." he looks at her then, whom he has captured so intensely within his portrayed city of wood and brine, "they are good men, much like the ones of Kaupang. Honest men."

Bretagne's face falls momentarily and Santana opens her mouth to rebuke, but he sweeps onward, incensed by the plight they have all suffered. "I do not know why the gods have burdened us with such pain, but you can fix it, yes? They say you have the fastest strike in all of Nor Veg! Surely a single _draugr _stands no match for you and your weapon."

The way he looks at her, with such a sense of pure hope, sends a shot of anxiety down Brittany's spine. Her jaw moves once, twice, but no sound comes out. Santana's voice instead fills the void. "You doubt? _Draugr _have no chance." She grins at her friend. "Like centaur said, yes?"

The weight of the snake pendant against Brittany's breastbone feels all too heavy at once. She hesitated before grabbing the amulet from her room, stuffing it down the collar of her tunic to thump softly against the smooth skin of her torso. Its weight feels reminiscent of the centaur's hand she held as he died, his promise passed along into this one piece of jewelry that Brittany alone guards. There are whispers, rumours of a centaur encampment upon the end of one of these very same fjords, melting into the forest to disappear in a rush of hard hooves. No one has dared to venture so far into the wilderness, so far that all civilization disappears into untamed savagery where even the tribes of the land dare not go. For it is only there that the creatures dwell.

"Just like he said." Brittany says quietly, rotating her neck to let the necklace fall easier upon her shoulders. (It doesn't.)

Rory stares at them both as if they've talked of slaying dragons. "You... the centaurs exist? Have you seen one?"

"They exist just as dragons do. And unicorns." _She could never forget the unicorns,_ Santana thinks with a roll of her eyes.

"But... _how?_"

Brittany waves him off, coming to a stop to adjust her thick leather boots. "For a later time. We should rest now to regain our strength." A low growl comes from her, and she pouts. "We passed lunch long ago, and I'm starved."

When Santana sits on a large rock to rest her aching feet, Brittany nudges her aside until they share the same space. Amused, Santana tries to push back, but Brittany's bulk is superior to hers - lean muscle refuses to move. Instead she huffs and perches upon the edge of her seat, snatching deer meat ground together with juniper and flattened into strips from her friend when she leans in to take a bite. Brittany stares at her empty hands for a second, slowly turning to Santana who chews innocently with a mischievous smirk curling the corners of her lips.

"Did you-"

"Mhm."

"But-"

"No, none for you."

Blue eyes narrow for a moment before Santana feels long arms wrap around her waist; she squeals in alarm when Brittany sits her down upon her lap, one limb secured firmly against her hips and the other used to pluck the remaining meal from her fingers. Her warmth through the thick material of her robe is blinding, and she squirms nervously for a moment before hot breath ghosts by her ear.

"Stay a while. It feels wrong to have you so far away." Her breath smells sweet and tastes even finer - Santana hesitantly leans into the strength of Brittany's shoulder and fishes through the pack upon her back. Rory watches them both with curious eyes, noting how the slightest shift in Santana's body is compensated by an adjustment in Brittany's stance, or how Brittany wordlessly holds out her hand and Santana places the water-skin in her palm without having to look. Their communication is silent if not strange. In the sun, the red of her staff fractures to shine patterns over the planes of their faces.

Eventually Santana half-sleeps with her head against Brittany's neck, playing with the soft, wispy hairs floating out of her braid. Brittany likes Santana like this - not that she likes the other Santanas less, there will always be an infinite amount of affection for whatever persona she so chooses to wear - lax with sleep, loose with sparkling eyes and a lazy smile. Sometimes she wakes and Santana is still near, sprawled out in Brittany's own bed, her mouth parted and so inviting. It takes all she has not to simply close her lips with a kiss.

"How far are we from Breiðvík?" Her voice is hushed, both arms looped to settle against the small of Santana's back. The delicate curl of her spine makes her feel so small, fragile in Brittany's hold. An artifact of immeasurable worth, unable to simply be put upon a shelf to watch, lest she forgets the ridges of her form.

Ever since the nightmares, Santana seems to desire her touch to ward away the demons. Brittany doesn't mind, is happy to lend her warmth to her friend whenever she would so desire it, but she worries. Only her embrace wound so tightly is able to chase the constant shadows away. Still, her eyes are dark from exhaustion, laying awake and listening to Brittany's rhythmic inhalations.

"A little over halfway." Rory muses thoughtfully, glancing around the forests for markers. "If we hurry, we could make it before nightfall."

Though not at its peak, the sun still sheds its light upon the trio. Shadows have begun to deepen, darker with the intent of the night. It is through mutual consensus that they rise and finish their journey.

As Brittany goes to wake Santana, they hear the clamour of voices upon the main path. All three halt in their steps - Santana raises her head sharply from her resting position and scans the break in the trees for any sign of danger. With the language - crudely spoken Norse, jeering - comes the ring of metal and the undeniable taunts coupled with the scream of a woman. Rory kneels, hand hovering over his axe, while Santana stretches out her hand towards their hound.

"Go," she whispers, eyes flashing blue for a moment before closing. When they open again she is lower to the ground, all senses tingling as her vessel stealthily makes his way through the undergrowth, snaking around plants with careful steps. She hears every whisper of the wind and the quiet chatter of the animals - each is a song of their own, bombarding her as they come in from all sides. _Here, mistress,_ comes Sandalio's answer to bring her into the present, crouched upon the edge of the forest to peer into the road.

Santana smells the eight before she sees them in all their monochrome glory, adorned in dirty cloth and patched furs. Their beards are wild and tangled like brambles and their smiles cruel as they point spears and swords at the hapless travellers - their short, squat horses snort nervously as the foreign men advance upon them with unfriendly eyes. Their stench is overpowering, stunning the priestess into momentary inaction as they backhand one of the two merchants; his blood, grey from her borrowed eyes, splatters into the dirt beside him. The woman she believes to be his wife gasps and runs to him, touching the split portions of his face with tender care.

_Santana. _Brittany's far away whisper brings Sandalio's head back to their hiding spot where she retreats, melting just as swiftly into the foliage as she had appeared. His consciousness slips away from her - Brittany's face is the next thing she sees, hovering worriedly above her own. Rory watches with great uncertainty visible in the movements he makes.

"Bandits." She says hoarsely, greedily drinking from the water-skin offered. "Eight. Merchants on road?" Rory curses with his tongue between his teeth, running one hand through his messy brown hair.

"If we are quiet, we can sneak past them. Few come down here when they have such a prize waiting for them up above." A decent plan, surely. But he knows not of them, what they do. Even before he finishes she sees Brittany's head shaking back and forth in denial.

"And do what, leave those poor people to their fate?"

"You heard Santana, there are eight of them, but only three of us! If we try, they'll surely take our carcasses as victory spoils."

Brittany stands up - since when were they on the ground? - and reaches for her spear, already shouldering off her pack to lay it upon the leaf-strewn floor. She checks her leather bracers carefully, opening a hand and keeping a little smile to herself when Santana wordlessly lays her skullcap in her palm. "If you cannot help them, I will," she asserts fiercely, turning to climb the small slope, "for I am Brittany Piersson, daughter of Jarl Betar Silver-Spear, and we do not let our people suffer for the cowardice of others."

She turns only once, raising expectant eyebrows at her friend. After a moment's hesitation, Santana sighs and gathers her staff to join her in the trek upwards.

Once surfaced, it's obvious loot is the furthest thing on their minds. Two guard the caravan while the others take turns pushing the other men around, laughing when they stumble and plant their faces in the dirt. Bile churns in both throats when they see the flailing legs of a women, her dress ripped and hiked far above her knees, vainly fighting off the bear of an attacker. Brittany's grip turns knuckle-white, and all pleading to go about this rationally disappears.

Her hand flashes to the throwing axes set down beside her. A moment later, one falls as the blade buries itself in the back of his head, skull splitting with a mighty crack to spill brain matter down the fabric of his tunic. All laughter stops when Brittany emerges from the bush, her jaw set angrily and eyes nothing but two burning pools of slate. "Leave, _skreyja meyja_!" Her spear thumps hard on the ground for emphasis. "Stealing like dogs? Fitting, isn't it?"

One, equally as repulsive as the others, steps forward with a scoff. "And you can tell us to do different, girl? No man takes orders from a wench disguised as a warrior."

Brittany frowns, readying her stance. "Good thing I wear nothing but my own skin, then. It seems I have no choice but to change your ways."

His lips pull back into a snarl and a moment later he unsheathes from his belt a crude axe, the blade nicked upon the edges but still deadly. She eyes his weapon as it gleams in the dying daylight of the sun, catching the briefest glimpse of Santana's ruby before her mirror is moved by a wild swing to her face. She sweeps to the left, jabbing downwards. His feet jerk out the way just in time, but his momentum brings him into her upraised leg which plants itself in his soft under-belly. With a grunt she shoves him away, bringing her spear up to strike, pushing past feeble skin and bulky muscle to crunch through the bone of his shoulder.

_Maim,_ Brittany repeats to herself as she has flashes of Aarhus, _only maim. _

The other six circle her silently. They only see the spear clutched within her hands and the danger she possesses, smooth and sharp, a cold river flowing under the unmoving ice. Nothing of the way her eyes flicker to the crippled man on the ground with something resembling regret, eyeing the maggot-white bone protruding from his tunic. Certainly not how she lingers on the unmoving corpse with the grey matter leaking out into the soil.

Three come at once - she ducks the first, blocks the second, and jams the end of her spear into the third before he reaches her. Her feet create thick clouds of dust as she twirls, cracking the shaft of her weapon over one bald head as she lunges forward to roll out the way. Brittany has so little room to move, stuck in a constant motion of weaving through storms of metal, feeling each impact reverberate through her arms and up to her spine. Her spear manages to find itself in the abdomen of one, rending the flesh open before she's knocked over, twisting onto her back at the last moment and deflecting what could have been a fatal blow to her neck.

"Santana, may I have some help?" Tendons strain under her skin as she attempts to force away the imposing body of the bandit from her face - his muscles bulge, and soon her shaft is pressing hard into the hollow of her throat. "Santana!"

A burst of blue from the corner of her eye; wisps of it slither around the arms of the unsuspecting men and drag them far away, flinging them into the trunks of trees and high up into the sky. Santana bares her teeth angrily and roars with the power of the nether, lifting her attacker up by the ankles and slamming him down into the dirt. There is something inside her, something primal, that reacts so very violently to Brittany's legs kicking against the ground - though her eyes are blue, the anger inside her is as white as vicious lightning.

They get up, dazed and bruised, but certainly not finished. As Brittany scrambles up from her prone position they all turn slowly to the priestess - sweat rolls down her temples as she struggles to keep them in her sights. Ataecina whispers to her, but this dragon roiling within her sternum cuts her hearing; before their eyes, her power wavers.

"Get her!" Santana backs up fearfully, heels tripping upon the immobile body of one merchant.

Her palm goes out. The blue flickers once and dies.

_I need more! _She cries out in her head, frantically amassing everything in her reserve. _Give me more, goddess!_ _Please!_

The first man draws near enough to receive a mouthful of her staff. Teeth crack under the weight of her swing and he howls in agony, cupping one hand over his bleeding mouth where his blood splatters below. Something dark within her stirs, but she fights it away valiantly. "You know what we do to bitches who think themselves heroes?" They snarl from around her, steadily advancing. "We _fuck_ them like the animals they are, and then we slit their throats so _all _their little friends can see!"

_Stay away from her!_

A rage fills her. It is foreign, not coming from her chest - instead it travels through her arm, setting the blood aflame, rattling her bones and burning her skin. The ruby glows blindingly bright and she barely has time to register Brittany crying out in pain, sinking to one knee and clutching her chest, before it takes over the essence of her. The feeling seats itself in the crown of Santana's forehead as the ground around her explodes into blue waves, pulsating and uprooting the trees so unlucky to be near her form. She is a hurricane unleashed, sweeping through the wilderness, her breath a screaming gale that shatters eardrums; bodies fly like empty barrels as her hand arcs out and knocks them from their feet. Ataecina shadows her steps as well as another - she tastes spearmint in her mouth as the booming death of the trees echo the snapping of feeble spines.

When the dust settles, they are the only ones remaining.

Brittany rises as Santana falls to her knees, drained but no longer in pain. Her ruby dims once again with the return of her thoughts. She hurries over to her friend, looping her arm around Santana's hips and brushing bangs from her eyes. "Are you alright? What happened?"

The touch of Brittany's hand sparks that same feeling from earlier, but in such a different way. Her heart thrums faster within the confines of her chest and everything comes back to life - her breathing erratic, Santana is so close that she can count the stars in Brittany's eyes. They stare at each other for a second, and Brittany can feel Santana's heavy breath sweep across her face in a gentle wind.

"It was you." Quiet, Santana runs her fingers along the strength of Brittany's jaw. Such a simple action sends chills throughout her body and confirms her thoughts.

Brittany's nose scrunches in confusion. "What was me?"

"You were the one that I felt," Santana says, pressing one of her friend's hands to her chest, "in here. You gave me power."

Brittany recalls the spike of pain through her being the moment Santana doubled her force. Though unmoving, she felt like she was flying, spreading her arms and shifting the world with a single touch. Moving _with_ Santana. They both glance at the ruby, the physical representation of a bond that defies all known logic - connected as they now are, with Brittany's hand resting dangerously low on her chest, they share not the same self they previously had.

It is many hours more to Breiðvík. Carefully, she lifts Santana up until she stands, lingering for a moment before pulling away. Santana flips her hood back over her eyes and attempts to mask the way her hands tremble as they always do after such a blow to her stamina. Sandalio nudges her palm worriedly, huffing his relief to his mistress. Rory comes jogging up to them a moment later with his axe stained red with blood. "Is anyone injured?"

Brittany opens her mouth to deny, but before she can, his face turns alarmed. "Bretagne, what happened? You look like a ghost."

And she does. Such an unexpected drain has taken its toll on Brittany. With a brief glimpse into Santana's world comes the weight of seeing the beyond, and her being is heavy with all the lifetimes she has yet to live. "You have no need to worry. It was just... a bit sudden. Fighting always does that to me." She avoids the suspicious dark eyes drilling into the side of her temple, instead urging the group forwards. "We need to arrive by nightfall, no?"

He scans her for a moment, but reluctantly nods. "Right. This way, then."

When he turns back to the front, Santana leans up close until her lips are inches away from Brittany's ear. "Are you sure? You shake."

Brittany clenches her hands before swallowing, cautiously turning to face her friend. "Can... can I hold your hand? I feel better when you are close to me." Santana gives her the shyest smile and nervously offers her palm, open and giving, to Brittany; she grabs it tenderly and intertwines their fingers until they settle naturally, as if they fit all along. A gentle murmuring fills her ears - later, she will realize it is Santana's heartbeat resounding in her head from where her wrist brushes against her veins. Sated and suddenly energized, she smiles back and tugs her along.

With Sandalio at their heels and Rory leading the way, they resume the long road to Breiðvík, the setting sun warm on their backs.

* * *

><p>The first thing Santana notices about Breiðvík is that, despite the twilight that has fallen and ushered the villagers into their homes, it is eerily still. At this hour houses would be lit and loud with the bustling of families inside, smoke billowing from their chimneys, the soft glow of lanterns and the bright fire spilling out through the cracks of their homes. But instead, nothing sounds except the lap of the sea and the occasional yowl of a stray cat. Any semblance of life has been swallowed by the inky darkness that crawls about their ankles. Santana swallows and inches closer to Brittany.<p>

Brittany, for her part, feels nothing except the biting cold and the constant feeling of eyes on her back. She looks around suspiciously, one hand lingering near her axe, bringing Santana closer to her with her other. She can feel her friend's unease in waves, blanketing her in similar distress.

"Bad here." Santana mutters, whispering a quiet word so her baubles spring to life. "Too dark."

_Bad dark. _

Rory checks the locks on all the houses as they go by, having quiet exchanges with a few people through the boards. They see how happy he is to get home despite the tension that has settled itself over his town, how he limps with blistered feet at the ends of his strides. Upon the horizon they see a quaint little church watching over the town.

_Some protection, _Santana thinks in her head as they continue their journey onwards. Brittany starts for a second before looking to her and giving her a disapproving frown, as if she simply heard her thoughts out loud.

They creep silently through the abandoned streets, approaching a little house upon the end of the row. It droops ever so slightly to the right and is hobbled like an old man - its cane is a tired wooden beam holding a portion of its faded wall upright, whatever it smokes in its little pipe gives off a foul odour as it wisps feebly out into the dark night sky. Rory knocks once, then three times in succession with a pause between the two. A moment later the sound of scraping locks is heard; the old man groans as he welcomes his children back into the warmth of his heart.

Brittany and Santana are herded into a house that looked like it originally could be called a longhouse, but it lost its way somewhere on the track. A long hallway splits off into several different rooms that are separated with animal skins; in the center hums a cheery little fire roasting an undoubtedly fishy meal, spreading its warmth into the cold corners of the house. Instantly, the dark lightens from around their shoulders and they can breathe, smiling back at the curious faces that peek out at them from the folds of their mother's skirt. They all look like Rory - identical mops of messy brown hair and shallow jaws. Yet they stay rooted by the fire as if it would chase away all the monsters in the night.

Rory is immediately swept up into a hug by a worrying mother, clucking over the stray hairs swept up and smoothing them down with a swipe of her hand. Brittany feels a sort of melancholy for something she never got to experience, and Santana swallows as she remembers all she left behind.

(Maybe it's just her imagination, but the throbbing against her breastbone feels quicker than usual.)

"Ma, really, nothing happened!" Rory laughs, ducking out of her embrace and sub-consciously re-ruffling his hair. Brittany looks a cross between amused and perplexed while Santana simply looks out of place, eyes darting but never resting, searching for something that only she can find. He notes with some surprise that their hands have not unclasped since the scuffle with the highwaymen hours ago. "This is Bretagne, blood of Jarl Betar, and this is Santana, a priestess of..." The boy eyes her sheepishly. "Sorry, what was her name?"

"Ataecina." Santana says quietly, tapping her staff once upon the ground to extinguish her jewels. The children gasp in delight.

"Yes, Ataecina. They will be the ones that hunt down the _draugr_ for us."

His oldest brother, no more than thirteen summers, looks at them sceptically. "Them? You went all the way to Kaupang to come back with a couple of girls?"

Rory goes to smack him on the back of the head, but before he can move there is a rustle of movement, and the tip of Brittany's bloodied spear rests upon the crown of his forehead. She smiles and it is free of anger or indignation, simply that carefree and floaty thing Santana has seen a handful of times upon confrontation with the boys in town. It looks wrong on her, vacant. A defence mechanism she doesn't even know she uses.

"Are you sure you want to call us _just a couple of girls_?" Only when he shakes his head rapidly does Brittany allow herself a hint of a smirk.

She drops her pack, tugging Santana along with her. Santana, for her part, is fascinated by the memories she sees within these walls; family gatherings around the fire, hauls of fish and game after a long day's work, a father dressed in white pacing about the rooms, spreading some type of leaf across the ground. Spicy but foreign. _So this is what a family must look like_. It looks none too different from the nights she spent with her mother, preparing the herbs and looking after the people Botaya sheltered. She grimaces, forcefully pushing herself away from the past and into the present.

"Come now, you must be hungry from the road." Rory's mother is a round little woman with rosy cheeks and a perpetual strand of hair escaping from her bun. They both take a liking to her immediately, even more so when she places a rich soup in their hands, the wooden bowls hot to their cold skin. "I apologize the place is in such a bad state - with the attacks, the town has been focused on gathering hunting parties and protecting the people more than actually _helping_ do their jobs." She rolls her eyes, shuffling a pile of dishes out of the way so they can sit themselves upon a roughly constructed bench and warm their feet. "Not that we can blame them. That last attack... it took a lot out of all of us."

Santana sees flashes of a room splattered with blood, little children limp and dead and a mother that tried valiantly to protect them until their final breath. All that remains of the husband is a torso, limbs torn from his body and strewn about the floor. She coughs mid-swallow and hastily puts down her bowl.

A hand thumps her on the back until she can breathe, and she nods gratefully at Brittany before snagging the water from her friend's belt and drinking until the tears go away. It takes a minute to notice that those around the fire are staring. "Sorry, just swallowed it wrong." They nod sympathetically - when they distract themselves, she pours the rest of her meal into Brittany's bowl.

Blue eyes turn to her in question. "Later." She mumbles, finding the ground rather interesting. "Not hungry." She offers the remaining scraps to Sandalio who grumbles in such pleasure she thinks he hasn't eaten in days. A small smile plays at her lips as she buries her cold hands in his wiry fur.

"So, Santana," Rory's mother wipes her mouth before winking and also giving the dog the rest of her bowl, "how long have you been in Nor Veg? Not from around here, I assume."

"I, ah, been here..." she trails off, counting in her head. There was snow when she first stepped foot onto these frozen lands, melting off within the first moon to make way for the infernal muck and constant wet of her then-ragged shoes. Little after that was when she met Brittany and her band of raiders, sweeping her off into a journey she'll never forget. She's survived the summer of Nor Veg, conquered the dragon inside of her and awakened something else within the span of seasons, tasting the first hint of darkness when the days themselves grew blacker. It is frightening how fast time has gone in the constant companionship Brittany offers. "seven moons? More, maybe? Hard tell. Left home long ago."

"Oh, I know about leaving home..." she sighs wistfully, undoubtedly thinking of the rolling hills of Hibernia, "where do you hail from?"

"Iberia."

"The land of the south, that gets nothing but sun year-long?"

"Yes, that one."

Brittany sees the tightening muscles in Santana's jaw from undoubtedly thinking too much of her past. She knows she misses her mother, sees it etched on her face in the interactions other children have with their parents. She knows nothing of Santana's father, but knows enough not to dwell on it. Instead, she makes an exaggerated yawn and drapes one long arm across stiff shoulders, leaning into Santana's warmth and pressing her forehead to a knotted temple.

"I apologize for the suddenness, but would you mind if we retired for the night? It was a long walk from Kaupang."

The large woman bustles up hastily, almost as if forgetting herself. "Oh, of course, of course! You poor things must be exhausted. Come on then, right this way."

(Santana shoots her a thankful smile when nobody's looking and wonders how she knows her so well. It's a blessing more than a curse.)

They are led to the back, where a deerskin is pushed aside to reveal a small but thankfully clean bed with a night table and water-basin tucked into the corner. Brittany groans and all but throws herself upon the woollen blanket, spreading herself out like the curious starfish Santana once found upon the beach. "We only had one to spare, the town has taken what we don't need up to the town hall to house the militia. I think you will see that you can fit more in that bed than what meets the eye! Goodnight to you both, and again, thank you so much for coming to finally bring peace to this little home of ours. It means more than you know."

She leaves, and they are left alone.

Only a moment's hesitation before Brittany sleepily raises one arm to beckon and Santana crawls in beside her, relaxing almost instantly in the warm, cozy sheets. She idly scratches behind her hound's ears, who has taken up position below the edge of the bed, splayed out and instantly asleep.

Brittany is a force of nature, Santana thinks as she's inevitably pulled flush against Brittany's side, her leg slung loosely around both of hers and her head resting upon the taller girl's shoulder. Ever since the nightmares have come she has found herself in Brittany's bed one way or another, curled up against her to ward away the shadows. With her body wrapped around her so completely that there is nowhere not touched by Brittany's skin, the bad dreams cease both in number and in severity. (Brittany simply enjoys Santana sleeping with her, her little body so fragile in her hands.) She stretches once, languidly, releasing with a tired huff and toeing off her dusty boots. They thump to the floor and she instantly settles back, nudging Brittany's neck with her nose until she turns her head to meet her.

"Hi." Santana whispers quietly with a smile.

"Hi." Brittany responds. Judging from the way her eyebrows crease in concentration it's obvious that Santana wants to say something that her mouth refuses to let her speak, whether it be through her own personal doubts or the language block that still, even after all these moons, separate them both. Brittany ducks down minutely and rests her forehead against Santana's, stifling a gasp as their bond connects fully with an almost audible _click_ and they lose themselves in the depths of each other.

_What do you see?_

_ Dark. All dark. There is something bad in this town. _

_ Show me. _

A massacred room, a lumbering monstrosity, a shattered community. Brittany memorizes its gait and the brutal gashes upon its arms, how its legs are still untouched but its torso ravaged by the desperate attempts of so many dying men.

_Is it here?_

_ Not now. But these shadows... they smother us. No matter where I turn all I can feel is fear and pain. _

Santana feeds it through and Brittany shakes under the oppressive weight of the mist, lets it drown her only to be brought back up by Santana's guiding touch. She knows now, more than ever, that this thing must be stopped before the whole village is paralysed by its own terror.

_There is hope that they can live again, but it needs to be killed. Without that, nothing can be done._

_I understand. You worry that I will break my promise?_

_ Never. I... I trust you._

(Brittany's smile prints itself in the quickness of her blood.)

_As I you. _

They pull themselves apart with reluctance, cold in the reaches of their heart even though they are entwined so fully it's difficult for them to move without disturbing the other. Brittany drags the blanket over them both and rolls until she traps one of Santana's legs in hers, drawing her so incredibly close.

"Goodnight, San." She mumbles sleepily, breath low and lethargic.

"Goodnight, Britt."

* * *

><p><strong>September 8<strong>**th****, 912**

Days pass. Trees begin to explode into a plethora of colour and the woods are alive with sound as rutting animals clash for the right to mate. Birds flock overhead and fill the air with their noisy chatter, sometimes skimming low to the water in search of easy prey. The shriek and howl of nature is a comforting thing to the people of Breiðvík, whose days are filled with weapon drills and false alarms and paranoia, scanning the endless sprawl of trees for a shuffle out of place, a drifting moan, or a rumble of rattling chains. Despite the fact that winter has not yet fallen and the country should still experience days with almost no night, there is a perpetual cloud hanging over the town; not quite a fog, but something obscure that blocks the otherwise blinding light of the sun.

Brittany finds it not too different than Kaupang; it is certainly smaller and the people less varied, but charming in its own way. There's no way she could ever settle down and be chained to the life they would usually live, the consistency of doing one thing for the remainder of her life unbearable, but it's a welcome break from the tension throbbing between her and her father. She makes a friend in Rory - he's difficult to comprehend with the thick accent muddling his words, but for the longest time she was the only one able to understand Santana and the drawl that clung itself to the loops of her letters.

Santana, however, is having a bit of a harder time.

Not because of the people, no. They are equally welcoming of her as of the jarl's daughter. It took a few days to get over her dark skin and wildfire eyes and the mark upon her forehead, but when it was learned she was here to tame the nightmare descended upon their town, they embraced her with a smile and open arms. Sometimes the children are a bit shy, but she doesn't mind. She's never been a friendly person.

It's the aura around this town that drives her mad. Her sleep has been more fractured than ever before - Brittany often has to trap her between the wall and her own body in an effort to get her to stop flailing, chasing white shadows half-formed in the depths of her mind. Twice she's woken up the rest of the household with her meaningless howling, eyes open and blind as she clutched onto the collar of Brittany's thin shirt and kicked her heels against the flimsy wall. Only she sees the ghosts that walk this town, the memories of the people slain an imprint of blood and bad bones that will linger for however long their murderer roams the ground they once occupied. They stare at her with hollow eyes as she passes by until her forehead breaks out into a cold sweat and she has to duck into the nearest building, heart hammering in her throat and panic forming in her chest. Sometimes they whisper in her ear, too - things in snippets of a language she doesn't understand, equally confused when she repeats it back to Brittany and is informed with a knotted brow that it certainly isn't Norse she speaks.

(Santana had once heard of the Language of the Dead, but thought it was simply an old wives tale to be cast aside like so many other foolish superstitions.)

Exhaustion makes her question if the things she sees are real. Chin in her palm, she glares half-heartedly at the spectre that floats above the dirt roads, her ghostly dress swirling at her ankles as she goes. She's the only one that hasn't made it her mission to ensure Santana never sleeps again, but the constant humming that goes on is enough to drive her to the brink of madness.

"Will you stop?" She snaps, planting her staff down on the ground to create an angry thump. Her charms tinkle from where they hit the wood.

The girl turns to her - Santana can't resist the shudder when she stares into sockets with no eyes, simply dark holes with wispy shadow flickering dimly from within. "You refuse my help, so obviously you look not for attention. What is it you want? I could be trying to work on a way to banish the _draugr_, but instead I have to be stuck listening to your _infernal_ singing at all manners of the night! I understand that you might be bored - it could be rather tedious, being dead - but bother someone else with it. I have no time to placate the restless dead. That is the job of your useless priest who sits atop his church growing larger by the second." Her mother tongue sounds foreign after months of using it so sparingly. People stare at her as they pass, but she simply huffs the bangs from her eyes and slouches from her position perched upon the banister.

For her part, the phantom stays where she is, curiously watching Santana with the eyes she does not possess. "What?"

A hint of a smile appears on translucent lips before she makes her way again in her eternal circle, singing all the while.

Santana sighs.

"Were you talking to Kolfinna?" She jolts at the voice next to her, so sudden and out of place. Next to her is a child, no older than ten summers, dark hair braided into two tails and swept over her collar with a messy dress caked with dust at the bottom.

"Who?" The girl is harmless, if a bit strange. There's this look about her, older than she appears - her stance is pointed and pin-straight, eyes sober and dark. Santana sees herself in her immediately.

"The girl, there." She gestures to where the ghost walks in her circle, arms out and humming a nameless tune that's lodged itself in her head for the past days. "Her name is Kolfinna. Used to live on the outskirts of town."

"You see them too?"

A shrug. "Sometimes. There are a lot of them recently with everybody scared. Even ones that were killed some other way seem to want to come out and play with the new dead."

The way she talks about it so easily has Santana wary. Even her, who has had dealings with ghosts and other creatures since she was young, is constantly on edge with so many ghostly faces skulking about the roads and haunting the buildings. "Why is she just moving in a circle all the time?"

"She was a bit... off in the head. Sweet girl, always kind. It was her favourite thing to do before she died, hopping in circles and singing songs. It..." Here she falters, biting her lip. "It was her screaming that woke the village, but it was too late. By the time they got there, everyone was dead."

Kolfinna turns her head at an unnatural angle to look at them while they talk, and the silent scream her mouth has morphed into sends dread shooting up Santana's spine. She tries to look away but she stays, mesmerized, as her jaw stretches and stretches until the grotesque picture sends such alarm bells shooting off in her mind that something else stirs, lighter that chases the shadows away. _Santana?_ Brittany's voice echoes in the recesses of her skull and she frowns, looking around for that head of blonde hair. _Are you okay?_

Her ruby gleams with non-existent sunlight and her eyes narrow in consideration.

_Where are you, Brittany?_

_ By... by the docks. Is this really you, Santana?_

_ We can find out._

"Come with me." She beckons the child with her, and turns around to get her bearings. Kolfinna has vanished with the rising breath of the wind. "Where docks?"

Santana follows her new friend down the gentle slope of the village until she can clearly hear the lapping of the waves against the rocky shore, the small fleet of fishing boats dark against the horizon. They step down onto the docks and Santana immediately knows where Brittany is; the arm holding onto her staff tugs at her body like she was on strings, and they jog quickly down the line until she spots her friend and rushes up to her. Brittany, for her part, drops the net she was helping with and doesn't hesitate to cup her jaw with both hands, as if checking for damage or flaws. (As usual, she finds none.)

"What was-"

"How did-"

They stop at the same time with matching sheepish grins. Santana tries again after soothingly circling her hand around Brittany's wrist. "Was that you? In my head?"

The taller girl bites at her lip with trepidation. "I-I think so. I was helping these boys at the docks and all of a sudden I got this really strange feeling, like I was panicking over something that someone else was seeing. It felt like last time... on the road, when you took my heart?"

Santana stalls for a moment but realizes quickly that Brittany doesn't talk figuratively, but literally. They both eye the gemstone - it does look suspiciously dark, like the blood that runs through their veins. Could it be? What happens if Brittany can hear all her thoughts? Is that even possible? Santana may share something special with the other girl, but she values her privacy above not much else - is she connected so completely that they _share_ a mind?

(What in the world would sharing a head with Bretagne Piersson be like?)

So busy fretting that random images of unicorns will flit through her consciousness, she doesn't notice Brittany trying to get her attention until the ruby flares and she feels a touch prodding the shallows of her brain, attempting to get her to open up and allow her in. She relents after a moment - not soon after, Brittany's soothing chime appears inside her head.

_You blocked me out._Her lips don't move, but Santana can hear the pout in her voice.

_Sorry. That wasn't my intention._

_ Stop worrying. This is a good thing, right?_

_ It is?_

A grin. _Surely! You get to speak to me whenever you want! Why, you must be the luckiest girl in the world. _

Santana snorts and cracks a wry smile, shaking her head at her friend's antics. It's exhilarating in a way, to have their own silent language that no one else is privy to. She makes a mental note to ask Eyja about it - before that, however, something catches her attention.

"Britt, why you know Spanish?"

She feels her confusion more than she sees it. "What?"

"I speak Spanish. Inside?"

Brittany tilts her head to the side. "No..." is her drawn out response, nose scrunching adorably in confusion. "you speak Norse."

"Spanish."

"Norse."

_Spanish._

_ Norse- no, stop that! _Santana grins, keeping up the constant tirade of sound in her head until Brittany backs out of their bond with a wince and a budding headache. She pouts and rubs at her temple. "That was mean."

With an exaggerated eyeroll, Santana goes up on her toes and gently presses her lips to Brittany's aching head, patting her in the same spot (and being completely oblivious as to how her best friend's face resembles a deep sunburn moments after). "Better?" She asks shyly, suddenly looking down.

"Much."

Up above on its little rise the church bell tolls six, setting all the birds around into flight. They both glance up and eye the way the shadow has once again begun to roll into the town, sending all the villagers fleeing to their homes where they will lock up their doors and hunker down for yet another night of restless sleep. Santana crinkles her brow worriedly, itching to wipe off the shroud settled around her skin. Something is wrong - the unease booms through her blood and Brittany must feel it too, for she presses a steady hand between Santana's shoulder-blades and conveys her support the way they used to do everything. By touch.

"We should go." She agrees silently and eyes the trails the ghosts leave behind as they, too, begin their journey up to haunt the recesses of the church and its holy walls. Her foot is just upon the first step to lead them back to Rory's home when a small hand grabs her fingers and halts her in her tracks. Santana turns expectantly, bending down to the little girl who cups her hands around her ear to whisper to her.

"Be careful of the man in white."

Her brow knots.

"Who?"

"The thing in white that comes in the middle of the night. He killed my parents, and Kolfinna, and the family down the road." Santana swallows harshly as she finally understands the heaviness in the eyes before her.

"I will."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

She lets herself be pulled away by Brittany, up the stairs and the dirt path and into the comforting warmth of Rory's hearth. Her mind swirls and her friend senses her turmoil but not the cause, touching her shoulder with one hand as if to reassure herself that Santana is still real, here with her and not somewhere else entirely. "What was that?"

She shakes her head to rid herself of lingering ghosts. "Nothing. Come on, we need to eat."

It never ceases to amaze them both how such a small town can hold so many secrets. An honest people are the Norse, a kind people, but still human. They, like all other races, have an affinity for lies and half-truths that Santana sees in the memories imprinted in these walls - death and disease and deception. It is no wonder the _draugr_ took such a place as its hunting ground. The unease alone could feed it for precious weeks, bloat its distended belly until it grew big and strong and unable to be killed. More time that passes the slimmer becomes their window of salvation.

(Something is wrong tonight. The sun has hidden itself behind opportunistic clouds and the birds have fallen silent. A breeze chills exposed skin, and the whisper of the wind sounds like the hum of countless voices.)

At the door they shake themselves, as if the action could rid their bodies of this infernal heaviness that weights on them, stepping over the threshold with an audible sigh of contentment. A line of salt spans the doorway to ward away the deeper dark that makes itself at home in the nooks of their town. They step inside to a blast of warmth, a blessing after spending dawn until dusk in the brisk autumn air. Niamh, Rory's mother, offers a smile and beckons them to sit around the fire to warm their frozen toes. "How goes the day, lassies?"

They gratefully take the food offered to them. "Slow," Santana offers, watching from the corner of her eye in amused disgust how Brittany shoves the food into her mouth without chewing, "met a girl. Small. Brown hair?"

"She had angry eyes." Brittany chimes in once she swallows, taking a gulp of the mead sitting in her cup. "Real dark, like Santana when somebody tells her she has a pretty face."

Santana reaches over without looking and thwacks her friend on the head, letting out a scoff to her surprised yelp. "Ignore her." She smirks at the grumble beside her and instead fixates her gaze on Niamh. "You know girl?"

Niamh nibbles her bottom lip worriedly, casting her eyes about. "My husband says it is in bad standards to talk about the dead so soon."

From his position on one of the benches, Rory scoffs into his plate. "Ma, that stems from nothing more than his own upbringing. The dead don't mind none, what with being dead an' all. What would they take offence to?"

"You watch your tone with me, young man." She warns before sighing and turning again to a curious Santana. "Aye, I know her. Nice lass. She seems to be the only survivor of any of the attacks - both her Ma and her Pa died less than a moon ago from the same beast. She done look none worse for wear, but she confessed to the pastor that she can see ghosts now. Erik and Ragnar and even little Kolfinna, all watchin' wherever she goes. Daithi - my husband - presided over the funerals... but none of the dead have been happy recently."

Santana taps the floor and sees flashes of a mighty man garbed in white with his voice full of smoke. Rain falling, dirt churned to filth, bodies being laid to rest. The picture is so clear she loses herself for a moment and stands underneath the breaking sky, fingers clasped in a smaller hand belonging to blank eyes and a quivering jaw. She goes to brush plastered bangs from the child's face, but the image disappears like the smoke the medicine-man blew out from between his parted lips.

Her head throbs angrily when reality returns. The necklace is hot against her chest and her heartbeat feels flighty, taken on too much emotion for such a small space. So much energy in one place overwhelms her.

"Excuse me, but feel sick now." She mumbles, gathering herself up only to sway uncertainly in one spot. Niamh rises worriedly but she waves her off with a weak attempt at a smile. "Be fine later. Thank you for food."

Something nudges at her consciousness.

_ Are you ill?_

_ I believe so, this place is taxing on my health. I just wish to sleep a full night for once._

Santana vaguely hears Brittany explaining for her when she crawls into their still messy sheets, winding herself down until trapped within them. Sandalio nuzzles at the palm of her hand and she smiles the best she can with half her face smashed into the bedding. "It will be nothing, boy, you'll see. Just simple overexertion." Her eyes fall closed moments later; her unease carries through into her dreams.

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><p><em>A rustle in the endless bush. A shuffling step, a ragged groan. Milky eyes swivel in rotting sockets as the shadows bounce across the surface of the moving water. It is here - he can smell the flesh, salty and rough after days in the wild. He pulls in the scent of their sleep through his decaying throat and turns clumsily to meet the hush of the wind against his numb face. Soon, the gloom will subside and the shadow racing along his mind will retreat, and he will learn to breathe again.<em>

_ What is his name? He knows not. Many days have passed since his creation and he sees his thoughts growing disorganized, frenzied and driven by nothing more than animal instinct. The little voice that used to whisper by his ear has all but vanished, devoured in his feral jaws as he claimed the lives of so _many_, so many dead and found and lost, rotting in the trees where their bones will feed the earth he, too, once lived upon. This planet and its countless gods have faded in time to the deterioration of his body. Sometimes he even feels little pieces of his soul falling away. What happens to those with no souls? They go... where do they go? To the place, the place with fire and anger and hatred. Anything would be better than this swirling medley of confusion and lust that he feels right down to his bitter bones, the only thing driving him onwards and to the flickering of the fire he sees between the trunks of the trees._

_ He has heard them, when they wake and are so very bright with life, telling them not to come into his forests. That a monster lurks here. But... what makes a monster? He simply does what his Master commands of him. At first he took so much guilty pleasure in feeling the flesh rip and tear. Their screams were music, drilling into the scattered remnants of his brain and left him craving more with the fire still flowing through the hollows of his veins. Yet he grows numb. Though Master tries to tie his flesh together, his limp grows with each passing day as the muscle in his feet decay and grow weak, being ripped away in tiny parts until one can see the maggot-white of his bones underneath the sinew. His moan is more of a throaty growl as his vocal chords crumple under the necrosis eating away his vessel. _

_ In that tiny place that still houses feeling, he recognizes he is weary. A thing with no need for sleep should wander endlessly, but he tires. He wants nothing more than this existence to end but knows not enough of himself to recognize that, only that he yearns for something the flesh cannot give._

_ There is no time for contemplation of how long he will remain to serve. Now, in this moment, there is only the beating of the heart from inside another chest and how he longs to snuff out the intrusive sound. They are either brave or brainless to attempt such a thing after the leaves have been painted red by the blood of their brothers. _

_ Fire feels strange on his skin. He passes his hand through the flame, watches how the waxen flesh curls and withers under the heat. It brings with it the smell of something once forgotten, cooked meat and smiles as he sat and ate to his heart's content. A flash of his life _before_ when he was something greater than this. It prompts a flicker of unease within the pits of his chest, and he turns slowly away. _

_ Only one man lay sleeping upon the ground. His robes a pristine white, he slumbers without worry. Broad-shouldered and dark-haired with a twig of mistletoe clutched in his massive hand._

**Ignore him. There is another.**

_ He raises his head to the breeze and grumbles his assent, shuffling away as clumsily as he had appeared. The darkness races along his skin and blocks out the tremulous sound of the man's heartbeat, focusing upon another simply a league away. Lighter, faster. The heart of a child. _

**You let her escape. Make not the same mistake once more.**

_ Yes, yes - he remembers her family, how they screamed when he took their boy and ripped his spine through his chest. His mother sobbed and sobbed as he broke her neck with his powerful jaws, saw silently how the man dropped his sword in despair and fell to his knees to cradle the body of his murdered wife. He fought little, accepting his fate with eyes glazed over and destroyed by grief, nothing but a pained huff of air escaping as cold fingers found his head and broke the casing of his skull. Now that it has been said, he remembers little footsteps running out into the cold autumn night, voice raw from screaming - he had left the sound and the life and the pain of noise, vanishing into the dark and letting its embrace take him far away from there. _

_The town is silent when he appears. The mist that comes with his arrival shrouds even the tops of their houses until he uses his hearing to navigate through the streets, dragging his wounded leg along and creating little scrapes in the dirt. When he breathes in, he pauses - upon the air he scents something familiar to him, of spearmint and animal musk and juniper, that tugs at the part of his mind that has not entirely succumbed to the sultry song of the darkness. Memories try to get through, but nothing can break the cage his Master has set around him, so he shuffles forward again, drawing ever closer to his prize. His tongue swells and sticks from his mouth at the trembling exhale of her breath meets his ears; thick, cold drool seeping down his chin and splattering his soiled garments gone to rags with neglect. _

_Broken nails scrape against the wooden door. The heaviness of sleep in her limbs threatens to overwhelm him, but he has learned; he swallows down the moan that aches to burst free from the prison of his lungs. He is wise, so very wise, and leaves the locked door to instead try another way that would keep her firmly entrenched in dream until her final moments. He loves those - the realization that they are going to die. It is sweeter than the blood that dribbles down his throat and sates his parched insides. _

_ Unknown intuition takes him to the cellar, closed but unlocked, waiting for him to find. His joints creak tortuously as he bends down, fingers curling in the iron hoop, tugging with all his unholy might until they are thrown open with a loud howl of metal. Around him, they stir but do not waken._

_ So close. _

_ His feet stumble over the steps as he moves down into the pitch dark of the cellar, breathing fetid air into his stilted lungs to create the echo of rattling chains throughout the room. Simply above this flimsy wooden flooring is his prize, the little one with dark hair and darker eyes, who slumbers and will soon meet her parents in the void that awaits her..._

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><p>Santana wakes and her limbs feel heavy with gore, her mouth full of imaginary rot and her eyes already perfectly accustomed to the silent dark. She lays listening for a moment, pushing away the shivers that rack her frame, but the intense feeling of disquiet causes her stomach to lurch again, fresh with the feeling of being in his skin.<p>

She rolls over to the side of the bed and breathes heavily, eyes squeezed shut and cold sweat dripping from her brow. Surely it was but a dream. An omen? Dream has no time in the celestial plane; for all she knows it could be of seasons later, when they have long since abandoned the hunt and monsters come back out to play. But then, what could it be searching? And what was that voice in its head, so familiar and smooth that she tries desperately to put a feeling to the face and comes up with nought. Nothing but shadows haunt her.

Blood blooms in her mouth, thick and rich and coppery, and she retches violently onto the floor.

Something dark splatters from her mouth and the taste is overwhelming; bitter, cold and filled to the very brim with slime. It simply causes her to cough, more and more heaving up from her chest until the sound of it hitting the wooden floor causes Brittany to wake in a frenzy, disoriented, called from sleep by the fear she could feel in the waking world. Santana stops briefly to intake a shuddering breath - the scent of it stirs her nausea and it begins again, this time with less gut-tearing vigour.

Brittany shuffles over to her side, hastily lighting a lantern as she goes. "Santana, are you- oh gods, what _is _that?"

The priestess moans and heaves for the last time, already wiping her mouth and stumbling up from her hunched position on the bed. Long arms wrap around her waist and prevent her from moving. "San, stop, you aren't in any shape to go anywhere. Look how sick you are."

"N-no, Britt-" she pries helplessly at the strong hands clasped over her abdomen, "have to go. Now!" More of the dark, metal taste overpowers her tongue and she winces, clapping one hand over her mouth until the feeling passes. "It here!"

"What is here?"

"_D-draugr!_ In town, I can feel it all over me, i-it-" Brittany soothes her but stands up regardless, carrying Santana over the mess she made and helping her gather her clothes. She, herself, shrugs on the heavy chain-mail reserved for battle. "Where, San? Can you tell me where?"

"I, uh," she closes her eyes and focuses in on the intense feeling of evil emmanating from a singular house, hearing the screams of the occupants within, "docks. By the docks."

Her head is in a frenzy. She barely notices Brittany asking Niamh to clean the black slime from the floor before they're heading off in a sprint, hands linked, towards wherever Santana's gut tells them to go. They weave through the streets with determination hardly seen until they come to a stop at the small lodging. _This is the one. I saw it._ Brittany squares her shoulder and rams into the door - it doesn't budge. She grits her teeth and tries again; it rattles on its frame but the stubborn wood refuses to give in. The mounting panic from within sends a new kind of urgency through her, and she tugs her friend away. "Cellar!"

Brittany doesn't question her, doesn't doubt. They turn around and descend into the dark depths, trusting the light from Santana's staff as they set foot and the first wave of death hits them. Brittany clenches her jaw _hard_ to stop the gag from coming forth - Santana, for her part, turns to a corner and retches more corruption onto the floor. Shuffling from overhead, the creak of heavy limbs. Blood drips from through the cracks.

_Together?_

_ Always._

The two of them slink up flimsy stairs, passing a bed soaked in red and a young man dead in the sheets. Santana presses his eyes closed and offers up a silent plea to her Goddess, her hand then coming to bunch in Brittany's chain-mail for comfort as they reach the main floor and witness the extent of the disaster.

Inside is in ruins.

Chairs are overturned, blankets strewn about, the fire scattered and smouldering. Blood is spattered along the walls to paint a grotesque picture, hand prints among the mess, frenzied marks in the dirt floor from where small feet have dug in to escape. Somehow the door to the wardrobe had been yanked off its sturdy hinges and broken into jagged pieces - inside the hollow of the space, a little body sits limp and dripping. Pieces of flesh are scattered around the corpse, hanging by threads; one can see the glint of bone in its jaw. It sways once before slumping to the side and a smear of blood follows its descent to the ground. All Santana sees is a mess of dark brown hair, released in sleep.

"No!" Her lips form the word but no sound bursts forth. Instead she rushes over to the child, the one that she had promised, _promised_ that she would be ever vigilant, ever cautious. Her corpse is still warm in her arms, and her life-blood soaks through the grey sleeves of Santana's robe. "Oh, _lo siento_," she whispers, seeing the briefest flicker of life in dark eyes, "_lo siento mucho_, forgive me..." The seal of her mouth pops open and more crimson rushes from it, coating her fingers. She whispers something but it ends on a wheeze and Santana has to hunch to hear.

"B-be-hind you..."

A thump of bare feet and Santana throws herself from the floor just in time to miss the clumsy swipe of rotting hands. She scrabbles back to Brittany, regretfully leaving the body of the child where it lays, clutching onto one of Brittany's strong arms to help her up. Her friend holds her spear in a grip so tight she believes her to be breaking bones in her hands, point wavering in the air.

(Flashes of a burning village and scorched corpses and make it _stop._)

The thing before them is but a mockery of a man. His skin is the grey clay that falls into the sea upon the cliffs, his breath the moan of dying trees. Once he could have been handsome with broad shoulders and large arms rotted down to bitter flesh and bone, but his nose has disintegrated from his face and his eyes are the colour of soured milk, listless and light as he scans them with but a modicum of intelligence. Hints of entrails are visible through the white of his ragged, filthy tunic and the equally soiled breeches that accompany it. His mouth gapes open in longing, trails of pink spittle pooling at his lopsided feet below.

Santana reaches for Ataecina, but she shakes so terribly it is impossible to sum up her strength. Her head pounds and her necklace burns wherever it touches. Brittany swallows thickly and raises her spear when it goes to move.

"Kill it!" Santana whispers urgently, soothing her hands over Brittany's frozen arms with worry. "What are you waiting for? It needs to die!"

In truth, she knows not what she waits for. There is a nagging in the back of her skull, an insistence to place a name to that terrible face that will haunt her dreams for weeks. Brittany scans the gashes on his arms and how his insides spill out from his distended belly, eyeing the cloth cap crudely tied around his skull, thick and crusted with stale blood. A hint of something peeks out from underneath that hat, and she is seized with a sudden doubt and a burst of speed.

Her spear goes out. He is no contestant for her quick reflexes, and the point of it snags the material before he even bothers to raise his arms. Brittany pulls, flicking the cap from his head.

Hair spills out, and all air seems to leave the room.

_Impossible,_ Brittany whispers to herself, but she is hopelessly fixated on the way that shock of blond hair falls in the exact same manner she had once run her fingers through, until it was free of knots and caused him no more discomfort. She once again traces the lines of his face, backing up with disbelieving steps the more familiar features seem to surface; the green of his eyes hidden beneath the unseeing film, the sullied white of his sacrificial clothing, the wounds still visible on the flats of his hands. Her weapon trembles in her hands and Santana's nails nearly pierce the skin of her arm when she notices one of her charms still hanging loosely around his fleshy wrist.

"S-Sam?"

His neck swivels slowly until he stares at her blankly, frozen mid-step as he considers the tone of her voice. "Sam, this i-is Bretagne. Do you remember me?"

_(There are memories slamming around the cage of his head and he remembers bright blue eyes and a charming laugh and soft soft skin, how his belly set aflame in a different way when he touched her and she smiled at him.)_

"B-rrr-thaag?"

"Yes, Bretagne." With tears in her eyes she slowly inches forward, levelling her spear with his head. "I was-am, I am your friend. And Santana?" She asks, steps light. "Do you remember her too?"

_(There's more and he's drowning in what he used to have, a friend with whirlwind eyes and who spoke like a thunderstorm, rich sandy skin and a sharp tongue but when she laughed it was like the heavens opened up and all was right with the world.)_

"Sn-tnaaa?"

There's a choked noise from behind her and Santana is holding in harsh sobs, one hand clamped over her trembling mouth as she looks at the abomination their boy had become. Her heart beats so very fast under her skin and he is fascinated by it, how it gives him comfort instead of hunger and he stumbles to her, too fixated to notice the spear by his face.

Santana scrambles back, staff held over her body protectively, but before she can retaliate there is a resounding boom in her skull that sends her crashing to the floor, both hands over her ears. Samuel, too, flinches back, with nothing but a garbled moan of protest. _**Leave them.**_Cold and slick, the voice crawls down her spine and finds itself at home in all the deepest reaches of her, where the darkness has seated itself and begun to grow. Black dribbles from her nose and she gags on the stench, barely noticing when a dark wind whips up from nothingness and surrounds her once-friend.

_**You will not harm them. This is not your duty.**_

Only Brittany seems to be unaffected, crouching down next to Santana and squinting at the gale that surrounds Samuel - he lifts his arms up curiously, watching the shadow swallow his limbs without any fear. His stiff neck turns to them for a fleeting second and she sees almost regret behind his deadened gaze before it devours him in his entirely and nothing is left in his place. Vanished.

She stares blankly at the spot he once was. In his wake he leaves the dead and the wounded, injured not only by body but by mind. Her thoughts seethe in terror, only one making itself known from the mass.

_I will have to kill my friend._

Brittany wipes hastily at the tears formed in her eyes, turning to Santana who writhes in agony upon the floor. Any attempt to touch her is warded away by the strange amulet that throbs with a blistering heat, scorching any skin touching it. Her friend's jaw grinds and pops as she looks into whatever void is presented.

Curious, Brittany hunches down next to her and presses their foreheads together.

With a horrified gasp, she _sees._

* * *

><p><em>"Hakka Pelle!"<em>

_ The chant rises and crashes over him like waves over the bow of his longship. _

_ The indecipherable grunts and chants that make up the northern language babbles around him as the leaders of a dozen tribes, clans, and cities ripples around him. Sami priests anoint their warriors with bear blood... men dressed in hides with frozen eyes and hair so fair it was white, but with cracked and windblown faces the color of tanned hides. They alone are silent, with the feral gaze of wolves. Fierce and fearless, these reindeer herders from the north of his father's empire have come for gold and the right to be left in peace. They, at least, he can understand. The milk-drinkers mill through the ranks giving blessings in the pompous language of those fat and content in the warm southern lands. How weak men can produce such strong warriors and worship a god who was taken by his enemies without a fight... but he can not deny the strength of their warriors. When the priest reached him, Harald had knelt automatically, letting him babble the meaningless words and dribble water across his brow._

_ "E Nomine patre, et filia, et spirito sancti," he intoned, mind vaguely recalling the confused explanation for how three gods can be one god he received when his brother had informed him that he, and all his thengs would be converting to Christianity. He closed his eyes in prayer; Odin had been good to his people, but it was the Christian god who gave them a rich land. "Father, grant us glory in battle. May these, our wayward brothers come to accept you, or seek your forgiveness and mercy in glorious death."_

_ The missionary had returned with a bruised ego and a swollen eye, now the swath of grey in the distance that marks the smoke of the village ahead marks its burial shroud. His men mount horses, the Sami taking up a skirmishing position around the outsides of his ranks. They will not fight and die for him, but they will uncover ambushes, and make short work of skirmishers and whatever rabble these pagans may put up. He slips the helm over his head, the din of an army on the march muffled to manageable levels by the steel. He takes up position in the front, his nephew William beside him. _

_ "Remember boyo, hold back till I give the word. A commander is no good if he becomes stuck in the fight. You have to see to act, otherwise you may win the battle and fight bravely, yet lose the war to pigheaded foolishness." William nodded solemnly, quiet for fourteen winters, with none of his father's penchant for bold exploits but a grave determination Harald recognized from his own father. _

_ "No worries lad, I'll ensure you have your share of the glory today." Left unsaid were his own questions of the glory of bringing armed men against a village for the sake of a different god. Glory, plunder, women, these were all fine reasons to war, for if it weren't the plunder of fat and pampered villages in France his people would not have survived long enough to conquer it. He had heard much of Jesus and his teachings, but the priests had not explained how a man who preached peace and love and obedience would turn around and strike down pagans. Had it not been pagan soldiers who had seized him? Had he not forbidden his disciples from killing them in his defence? Too many questions, too many contradictions. Odin, he understood. Even Loki, he understood, as well as any man could understand a mad god. This strange god of the south, he would never comprehend. _

_ He tapped the cross on his chest and willed his concerns to silence. Surely if God could forgive him a life spent spilling blood of innocents in the name of idols, he could be forgiven spilling it in His name._

_ Much as he did, some follow false gods that they refuse to relinquish._

_ "William!" He calls and his nephew answers, materializing silently beside him as if a ghost. Sometimes he wonders how one so silent could be blood to such a loud and ferocious warrior but his proficiency with the precious longsword of his father's father proves to be near legendary at such a tender age. Given a few years more under his guidance and he will be commanding armies that conquer nations and dominate the seas, utilizing his northern heritage to guide him over the frigid waters. His curls are damp and plastered under his cap, too big for his small head, but he seems to pay them no mind._

_ They make visit to their most interesting prisoner. Mere days ago they apprehended her upon the coasts of Heiðabýr and she has proved most trying. The fat men in their black robes babble and swell indignantly the longer she remains alive but he has stated to let her live on pain of their own death; they value their pathetic existence more so than one of a simple heathen. Always do they preach around her until their words melt into a singular stream. Perhaps in hope of converting her? He will never know. He almost smiles at the irritated expression on her face as she sits within the small cage, listening to the meaningless words he knows will never sway her. _

_ Harald beckons one of the priests over. Sweat dots his upper lip despite the relative cold of the night and his lips are dry and cracked from reciting prayer. He has heard that once he had a son, but his distant brethren have long since taken him to their own gods. "What can you tell me?"_

_ The man shrugs and he scratches his shortly cropped head of blond hair. His Norse is thick at best, too muddled in his native English tongue, but understandable. Long has he since shed the ties of his country, choosing instead to serve the Lord wherever it takes him. "Nothing new. She has not moved since you last came. I believe she may even be in some sort of trance."_

_ Even as he says that, one reaches inside the bars in an attempt to cross her. She recoils, but another goes at her from behind. She shouts - her voice is unique, of honey left out in the sun - and claps her hands; the vibration ripples through the ranks and a whirlwind of blue engulfs her, drawing inwards once to blast outwards and throw the men from her vicinity. Its echo is so strong that even Harald wobbles where he stands, planting his feet firmly in the ground and bracing himself, but the priest at his side is knocked to the dirt. When the dust clears the bars are still intact but her face is twisted into an angry snarl, eyes devoured by the colour of the summer ocean. Her markings throb. _

_ Somewhere in the air he senses another presence, heavy and sad. _

_ "Be still!" He roared even as the soldiers scrambled for their weapons to subdue the stranger with skin of sand and hair of crow. Despite her age she was beautiful and he found himself intrigued by the eyes that glowed bright and cut through the gloom. _

_ "It is a shame we have to meet this way, priestess." Upon her breast lay a small amulet. Of white stone, it throbbed with what he assumed to be her heartbeat. She snarled and raised her hands once more; at such a close proximity he could clearly discern the light that came not only from around her, but within her. Such a luminosity befitting a High Priestess. "Do not worry. You will not come to harm at this time. We may have need of you when we cross the seas to Nor Veg."_

_ Her eyes dulled but she no longer looked at him. Instead she glanced upwards and traced something he could not see upon the air. William, too, looked up with an unreadable scrutiny on his face. The priests began their babble again but she paid them no heed, instead lifting her lips into a tired smile and mumbled a single name._

_ Santana._

* * *

><p>"Mami!" Her hand reaches up and flings the pendant from around her neck; the scorching heat dies and she can think as clearly as she should, half-drunk from sickness and disbelief. The boom of the army still clashes all around her in waves of steel and sound - they had stretched out for leagues and the city of tents was low against the night sky lit orange by the flames of their fires. While Brittany lays on the floor in an attempt to come to grips with the enormity of such a force headed their way, Santana has only one thought in her mind.<p>

_I have to save her._ She gets up, shaky, taking one last glimpse at the carnage around her. The girl has died and her spirit lingers sadly in the air, touching the remnants of the only home she had ever known. Santana whispers a quiet apology to her - there were so many she couldn't save. Samuel, Ricardo, all those who died in Aarhus. She will not make the same mistake again. Her fingers slip on the lock of the door as she tries once, twice, eventually getting it open and passing by the stunned villagers hoarded on the other side, making way for the diseased angel soaked in a solution of sin. The sleeves of her robes stick to her skin but she forcefully shoves the thought away, knowing that if she lingers too long over _whose_ blood it is she will never leave this spot on the ground.

Mist crawls about her ankles as she breaks into a sprint. Where is _Heiðabýr_? It can't be in Northvegia; they would have known if an army that size sailed into their ports. Perhaps on the mainland below, then, near Taunmark. If her thoughts were fractured before, they are in tatters now, fishing for pieces of her vision to sew together into a map that will take her to her mother. For the life of her she is unable to erase the image of her in chains, surrounded by wealthy, _stupid_ men that attempt to change perfection, and the man dressed in scale-mail that looks himself a god.

She makes her way around to the edge of a farmhouse with laboured breath, searching out the dark mare she saw earlier, grazing in the field. Upon the edge of the accursed forest is the beast, calmly taking its morning meal with nothing amiss. (The sun rises. Had she been gone for such a time?) Santana approaches her cautiously but with swiftness in her steps, pleased when she touches her velvety snout and a huff of warm air ghosts along her palm. "Hello girl," she coos, voice still rough and tremulous with strain, "are you going to be good for me?" The horse snorts and Santana strokes her rough cheek with a small smile, giving her a pat before fleeing towards the barn she spotted earlier in search of a saddle.

In her mind, she senses Brittany coming back to herself, shaking off the bonds of dream and rising to her feet. With a renewed sense of urgency she runs back into the pasture and drapes the saddle over her broad back, fumbling with the clasps as she works the straps under her stomach and secures them together. All she needs is to get to Kaupang - she can take the first boat to Taunmark upon dawn. Or is it past dawn? She rests her pounding head in her hand for a minute, groaning under the weight of all the unanswerable questions such a journey presents. Santana had no destination in mind when she first struck out north, simply an urgency to get away from her constant home of the south and begin anew, far from the armies the fat men bring. It seems ironic, that she rides off now into the heat of the fray, but she cannot find it in herself to care when her only remaining blood is in so much danger. Any sense of precaution or planning is thrown out in favour of reaching her mother; she secures the saddle to the mare and heaves herself into the seat, grasping the reins nervously with one hand and steadying herself with another. It has been a long time since she's rode a horse.

Before she can snap the reins and begin her journey, a voice calls out. Santana could recognize Brittany's voice anywhere, and steels herself when the pounding of footsteps becomes apparent. Despite her mind telling that if she were to simply look into those eyes she would never move again, she turns her head to face her friend who comes up, red in the face and panting after sprinting uphill. "W-where are you going?" Brittany huffs, placing both of her palms upon the flank of the mare, staring up at the priestess who simply seems that much smaller atop the beast.

"South." She says simply, pushing away the panic she sees on Brittany's graceful features. "Need to find Mami."

"Santana, she could be anywhere in that country, and how do you think you would get past the hundreds... nay, _thousands_ of men that guard her? You think crooked from fear!"

"She is my blood!" Agitated, Santana runs a hand through her hair and glares into the slowly lightening sky; still dark with twilight, she knows Brittany can see the tears forming in her eyes. "I have to! Do you know how feels, to see family like that? I fail other people, but refuse to fail her."

A fair brow furrows. "You haven't failed anyone, San. You left because you had to. Her getting caught has nothing to do with you."

For the first time in their relationship, Santana is at a loss. She doesn't know how to make Brittany see that her whole being longs to go to her mother, no matter how foolish or farfetched the idea may be. She has to make an effort, a risk, _something._ It's the only way to block out the lost expression on Samuel's broken face or the empty, gaping gaze of the girl she failed to protect. Her fingers clench nervously around the reins as she stares into her friend's face, willing her to understand what cannot be put into words.

"I found this on the floor." Brittany opens one of her hands and pools the necklace in her palm; the heat from before has faded but the throb of her mother's heartbeat remains, strong and sure despite the circumstances that surround it. She smiles thankfully and it is returned, but when she pulls at the reins to go, it drops. One pale hand presses against her knee - she swallows and looks into Brittany's pleading eyes.

_Please, stay with me._

_ Why?_

_ What do you mean, why? _Brittany is holding tight to her leg, refusing to let go, and the heat of her burns hotter than any fire ever could have.

_Why do you want me here so badly? _

_ Because... because I-_

Even in thought Brittany has trouble with her words. For so long she has yearned to speak the truth to Santana, to spill out her feelings in vibrant soliloquies that paint the world as beautiful as her feelings towards the other girl. Brittany knows she isn't the smartest, that Santana could have anyone else with one look into those void-ridden eyes, but something in her heart stops her from giving up that simply. Perhaps it was the reassurance in Afi's smile as he touches her knee and promised her that love had no boundaries, or the rare _sólarljós-bros _that lit up her being and made her feel invincible like the mythical valkyrja that sweep off deserving warriors to the halls of Valhalla. She is not deserving of Santana's razor-blade radiance, that wounds at the same time that it attracts, but she will try her best to be everything she could ever ask of her.

So the next time Santana sadly goes to turn away, Brittany plants her right foot in the stirrup, hands clamping around the cured leather of the saddle. One of her palms cups Santana's cheek and turns her surprised gaze towards her, ignoring all thoughts and actions other than bringing her closer and pressing their lips together.

The effect is instantaneous. Her knees shake and her fingertips tremble, electricity coursing down from the soles of her feet to the roots of her hair. Brittany remembers nothing except the scent of Santana's skin and the softness of her lips and how she wants to live in the chasms between.

Santana gasps into her mouth and she takes the opportunity to bleed herself into their kiss, pouring everything she is and ever will be into their connection of self. Santana trembles with the intensity of emotion, an earthquake in her bones, and Brittany is there to catch her when she falters. In her head speaks all of the reasons for her to stay, and in each there is something so deceptively close to something better left unknown (an _I love you_, invisible to Santana who speaks not in love but in hurt) that it steals her breath away on the open wind.

Ever so slowly she responds until they are pulling each other closer, merging their skeletons together; Brittany thinks her leg is going to lock from holding all her weight upon it, and Santana feels her nails split and bleed with the strain, but it could never be more perfect. Santana tangles one hand at the base of Brittany's neck and feels all the moments that _could have been_ between them become.

They separate. With flushed cheeks and swollen lips, Brittany looks beautiful as she leans her forehead on Santana and gathers her so close they breathe the same moment. "That," she murmurs quietly, hope laced through every letter, "is why I want you to stay. Please. Just... stay with me."

Santana swallows, and aftershocks are rolling through her in the wake of the storm, but her voice is equally soft when she agrees. "Okay."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

**I pray that you will find peace of mind**

**and I'll find you another time**

** September 8****th****, 912**

"Do you really think this a wise idea, Bretagne? Dark will fall in but a few hours - you should wait until next morn to hunt the beast."

Rory bites his lip anxiously as he watches Bretagne yank on the leather greaves until they settle over her shin, nestling against the top of her foot and falling just shy of her kneecap. Something has changed within them the hours they spent missing. His mother almost threw herself into a frenzy searching for them when news of the slaughter drifted past but it was for naught; he found them standing silently, side by side, overlooking the sea upon the very edge of the furthest dock. Bretagne's hand rested upon the small of Santana's back, and their eyes were both lost in thought. Distant. He ushered them back inside cautiously, as one would a wild animal, Sandalio nosing gently at their heels.

It looks like something has abandoned them, but a different understanding has taken its place.

He sees how they must always be near - Santana's foot touches Bretagne's hip as she sits upon the ground and dresses in her gear, how she leans back every so often to ensure Santana is still with them. They talk in the tongue of touch and it is as potent as it is silent. Rory cringes when her fists batter her shins in experiment. "We have no time. We need to find him."

"Surely it could wait a day-"

"No," she snaps, face finally tilting towards him, "we need to get to him _now_!" Her voice is strained and he sees the beginning of a shine within her eyes. Santana lays a hand upon her shoulder and mutters something soft until the knots begin to disappear and she nods, pressing her forehead to her thigh for a moment before beginning her quest with new vigour.

The priestess steps away and mouths a silent word to her, beckoning him into the corner of the room. Rory goes with trepidation - though something has undoubtedly shifted in Bretagne and the way her hands shake ever so slightly, it is so much more obvious in Santana in the way that she doesn't show it at all. Her face is as impassive as ever, the dark of her eyes as unreadable. He instead looks to her partner to judge her discord. Bretagne touches her ever so gently; a brush of knuckles against her cheekbone, the smooth of a rugged palm across her waist. Santana always closes her eyes with a lopsided half-smile as if it simply erases the unseen agony. It reminds him of his parents, and he frowns in thought.

She turns to him - in this light she burns with an internal shadow. "The draugr, he..." She licks her lips hesitantly, turning her gaze to Bretagne who begins to strap on her bracers. "We knew him. Cared deeply for him. He not of us, but across the sea. Bri-taa-nia?"

Rory sucks in a sharp breath of sympathy. "What was his name?"

A faint smile curls her lips, but it is bitter and unkind. "Samuel. He... he was ours, yes? We took care him. No matter what we did, no stop Bjorn, son of king. They kill him, but... it not end there. Somebody... _used_ him. Turn him into monster."

The ruby upon her staff flickers with a phantom ache, and he notices that Bretagne has stopped to listen. "This why we go now. End his pain. He deserve rest with Ataecina."

"I... I understand." One of his hands rakes through his hair, useless for a moment, before he considerably brightens with thought. "I will ask my Pa to give you things you'd need on the journey. He don't mind none and would be happy to help." Santana shoots him a grateful smile and he sees the Phantom Queen at her greatest in her face, glimmering just under the surface. He smiles back, pleasantly surprised, and exits the house.

They are alone when Santana moves to her hesitantly, crouching down and laying one hand upon the undone bracer. Brittany clenches her jaw and refuses to look up, her fingers playing angrily with the straps of her greaves. Every line of her is harsh and tense, wrong. The river she is has frozen by the weight of her grief, and her body is not strong enough to support the glacier she has become.

Silently, Santana stills Brittany's trembling hands and takes her arm with great care, lacing her bracer across her forearm until it is tight and snug against her skin. She takes the other, thick leather and covered by the hide of wild boar that roams the forests, and slips it onto Brittany's left arm, lingering when she pulls away. Brittany reaches forward and takes her hand, toying with the delicate fingers. Such hands have seen so much violence, yet remain so smooth. Yet another thing about Santana she doesn't believe human. (She's more than that - so much more.)

The rattle of her chain-mail invades her ears, and Brittany finally looks up to see Santana with it in her hands, offering it to her. She takes the chains in her fingers for a moment before shaking her head, coaxing Santana to lay it back down. At the inquisitive stare, she shrugs.

"If he manages to grab me, nothing can save me from his teeth. It would be wiser to keep my speed."

"But... can mouth really cut through metal?"

Brittany plays with the toggles on her boots. "If he tries, it can break anything."

She remembers long ago when another _draugr_ roamed - a lone one, brought back by the discontent of its death. He wasn't as strong as Samuel, and yet the body he destroyed was cut into pieces through the thick lamellar plating he wore, torn ragged at the limbs and spewing blood from destroyed muscle. His last few days were spent in the agony of his phantom parts.

Hands brush along her jaw. "Say not things like that, Brittany... we... will make this right."

Her nose scrunches. "How can this ever be right? I have... have to k-kill..." Brittany's hand wraps around the tip of her spear to feel the cut of the metal, cold against her skin. This weapon has killed many a man, but none hold the same significance. Not a single friendly face has been on the end of her blade.

"I know, Britt. I know."

Even from here Santana can feel the disjointed boom of Samuel's deadened heart in her head, moved only by the darkness that now lives inside of him. It is strange that she never once noticed his presence; it is everywhere now, inside her skull and on her tongue, the taint of his master mixed with his own former humanity. Overwhelming, it permeates everything she does until she can no longer rid herself of his influence.

Brittany takes her elbows and runs her fingers against the soft cotton, silently tracing the bones she feels underneath. One day, she will take Santana far from here. The world calls to her in the tongue that only one with a wandering heart can hear - but she will go nowhere without her most trusted friend by her side. Together, they will experience and execute wonders, and their names will forever be recorded into the threads of time.

But will they do so as friends, or as something else?

She still tastes the remnants of Santana on her lips though it has been hours since their kiss shared at dawn. Something has changed within them both - she feels it on the air they both breathe, thick with things unspoken. Her being is still jittery with the remembered feeling of truly touching Santana for the first time.

The door opens and Santana goes to pull away, but Brittany resists for but a moment to stroke the underneath of Santana's wrist, relishing in the her invisible shiver it creates.

Soon.

A man enters the threshold, larger than anything she's ever seen. He is the unmovable mountains of Sygnafylki that Brittany had passed through when she was young, nary up to her father's elbow with a weapon much too big for her small hands. The sounds of their waterfalls, howling as they fell below into the valley, are his footsteps upon the wooden flooring. She resists the urge to bow her head.

He stands before her and she rises to meet him, the whisper of her leather but a hiss in the air. Santana watches him with her eyes dark as midnight, calculating, flickering between him and Rory with a dawning realization.

"You would be Bretagne, then?"

When he speaks she thinks of rolling stones upon the cliffs, his voice low and rumbling, obscured by his natural accent. His brown beard is combed but left untamed - colour of wet wood, to match his shorter cut hair.

"I am."

He studies her for a moment, still as the ancient glaciers, before he moves and his hand lashes out. It's so fast that Brittany takes almost a millisecond too long to think, but instinct moves her body before rational thought catches up and she backs up out the way. His fist brushes past her nose.

"What-"

A large boom echoes within the household - Brittany squints as a gale of wind blows past her and he is thrown to the wall, blue lashing his hands to the surface and smothering his barrel chest. Santana bares her teeth, glimmering in the dark. Brittany is entranced with the way her eyes glow in such shadow.

"What you doing?" She snarls, clenching her fist so they tighten around his wrists - his wife smothers her cry in her hand and Rory darts back helplessly between the angered priestess and his father, unable to unwind the binds that hold him. The air is thick, oppressive; Brittany feels a twinge of discomfort in her chest and places one hand upon Santana's rigid shoulders, following the path of her outstretched arm until she laces her fingers into the holes in between her own hand. Her magic feels like smoke flowing over the skin of her palm - it twines around her knuckles and paints her nails until they are joined by the tendrils, the cool caress of them comforting.

"Let him go, San."

Santana turns to her incredulously, eyebrows raised high. Her eyes make Brittany think of Ataecina, smiling down upon her in the mud what seems like lifetimes ago.

"He was testing me. We have nothing to fear from him."

"Testing you?"

Santana remembers little but the flash of his hand and the panic that seized the depths of her - after so long watching Brittany fight and having others fall all around her, it never becomes any easier. If anything, it becomes harder on the wake of their budding _something_, each potential kill a worry that cleaves her right through the middle. She holds much more faith in her than that, she does, but it's simply... hard.

_Trust me, Santana. You can let go._

As if to reassure her, Brittany wraps one hand loosely around the wood of her spear. Just in case.

Santana smiles faintly and extinguishes the light.

The man falls with a loud thump, his booted feet firm against the ground, and his massive fingers curl around his wrist for a moment with an unreadable expression. Santana stays firm as he walks to her, Brittany's fingers still covering her own, lifting her chin in defiance when he stops to peer down upon her.

She's not prepared for the large smile he produces, teeth showing and eyes crinkling warmly at the corners.

"Truly befitting the title of priestess. It has been many moons since one could take me by surprise like you."

They both relax, a huff of air leaving their lungs with rushing suddenness. Light returns to the room - Brittany hadn't even noticed when it disappeared - and Santana sits upon a bench, rubbing her temple absently with one hand. This man, whoever he is... he teems with power. It flows all around him like a storm, through the pores of his skin and into every breath he breathes and out through the exhale of his nose. It curls around the hollows of his jaw and the turn of his elbows and the soles of his feet. She can hear it vibrate ever so quietly, singing to him in the sound of the earth, whispering of times past and those to come. Though he is not of the Goddess, his aura makes her feel safe. They have found yet another ally in this land of strangers.

"It fitting, you took me off-balance first." Santana smiles, taps her staff on the ground. "What you do here, _druida?_ Far from home for you."

Though they were many miles away, she remembers once, long ago, when a group of three men came into the city of Jaca. They wore robes white as the northern snow and their skin was pale as the nobles of Iberia, faces hidden under large, strangely coloured beards and helms made of animal skins. Santana remembers little of their features, only that the one leading the group had upon his head a mighty skull that peered out at her from under his worn and ragged hood. The gaping eyes burned with an intensity she had only seen once from her mami, but no other save the woman she clung to seemed to see the light.

_"Welcome to the city of Jaca," her mother had said with a serene smile, bowing her head in greeting, "what brings you here?"_

_ They see the markings upon her skin and salute her in one fluid motion, smiles easing themselves into their stoic features. "We go where the winds take us, priestess. Surely you know of that." _

_ Her hand falls, warm and heavy, upon Santana's small head. "Oh, that I do."_

"I could say the same. Ataecina has led you far from the fray, hm?"

"She had other plans for me."

Brittany eyes him carefully, leaning on her spear. His stance is relaxed now, his smile calm as he engages Santana in talk of her homeland. For the first time in what seems like an eternity, she doesn't become defensive at the mention from where she fled - in fact, she looks almost content, speaking to him with hand gestures and expressive eyes. Brittany marvels at the speech that has begun to sew itself together, taken on coherent form with a startling suddenness. After so long communicating by touch, she never truly realized when Santana began to learn.

Niamh comes up to her side. "That would be my Daithi. Always making a scene wherever he goes, foolish oaf." She sighs fondly, tapping the large stirring ladle upon her thigh. "When he asked me to leave with him, I gave it nary a thought, did I. My home was with him."

Brittany grins. "Do you miss Hibernia?"

"Oh, certainly. I miss the town where I grew up, the smell of my mother's cooking, the wind upon the hills. But we've made a life here, and I would never change that for anything."

The way she speaks of him makes Brittany think in terms of forevers. It's a strange concept, when one can die as easily as they can breathe in this often hostile, unforgiving territory. But something tells her that, with the shimmer even she can see weaving its way between his hands, he would never let anything do her harm. A true protector.

"Niamh..." Brittany bites her lip hesitantly, eyes sliding over once again to Santana. "Can I ask you something?"

"Surely, dear. What do you have on your mind?"

Santana feels blue eyes upon her - she turns and smiles at Brittany, unwound for the first time in days, muscles loose with familiarity. Brittany's breath catches when she brushes a strand of dark hair behind her ear, her grin turning into a bashful smile under Brittany's reverent gaze, pulling her attention back to Daithi as he asks her another question.

"What... what do you know about love?"

Everything in Niamh softens and she smiles fondly at the tall warrior, placing a comforting hand upon the ridge of her spine. "Enough to know that it will certainly find you one day, if you so want it."

"Are you sure?"

"More than anything."

And that is all she needs.

~.~.~.~.~

The procession is far from silent as they make the march from the small, sloping shack to the edge of the forests beyond. Niamh frets about them - tightening the tie of Brittany's thick braid, fiddling with the laces of Santana's new robe. A darker grey, road-weary but warm to combat the bitter chill beginning to sweep through the lands of Nor Veg. Her black cape flutters about her shoulders and the feathers upon her back do little to ward away the growing frost.

"Are you sure I can not accompany you? It would definitely make Ma feel safer." Rory watches his mother load down his new friends with supplies, anxiously untangling the charms on Santana's staff and fussing with the stray threads upon Brittany's cloth gambeson when she finds nothing else to do. Brittany laughs quietly and places one of her hands over Niamh's - with her fingers spread, one covers both of her own.

"We have to do this alone, Rory. We are sure. It was us in the beginning, so it would only be fitting for it to be us in the end."

They are to set out at high sun in an effort to make the most of the day. The less time they spend roaming the endless trees, the less traumatizing the wound will be.

Hopefully.

"How will you find him?" Daithi asks, squinting his eyes into the sun. There are few settlements that have found themselves in the ancient trees of Nor Veg, choosing instead to take root upon the shores and let their livelihood be governed by the hush of the waves breaking over the prow of their boat.

In answer, Santana searches in her pocket for a moment before showing a small charm to them - its once clear colour has been tainted by something unknown, the white of it grey with angry black tendrils seeking into the heart of the stone. "He drop it when we fought." She says, turning it over in her fingers. "I feel him from this. Two day-walks north."

It settles into a tug just below her heart, in the depths of her abdomen. She is filled with the discontent of his existence, the returning memories of a life long passed. It hurts somewhere she thinks not to mention, nestled in the tender quick of her. Brittany will be bestowing him a mercy, taking his undeath from him.

"How is he?" Brittany asks quietly, voice dark.

She bites her lip hesitantly. "He..." she sighs miserably, running a hand over her eyes, "he ready to die."

They fall silent for a moment, each wandering into the silence of their own thoughts. Santana's hand clenches so tightly around the charm she fears her knuckles will crack with the strain.

Daithi is once again the one to bring them back.

"What about your vision, Santana? Should we warn Jarl Betar?"

Brittany licks her lips. "I saw them, in Taunmark. There were... so many. We lack the power to counter them."

Her whole life was structured around fighting in that last glorious battle to die in honourable death. Brittany has long come to terms with her eventual demise, no matter how far away it may be, but now... having something so precious makes her want to stay, and makes her want to protect ever more. She knows little of a world outside of war, but has never truly engaged in it before. There have been battles, surely - where the towns were strewn with the corpses of the dead and men screamed as they died, where her spear sung as it flowed through the air and found its target time after time. There have been many battles, but nothing so dangerous as war. She could fight as hard as she ever did, as many times as her body allowed, but still be struck down with no end in sight. _That is the danger of war_, Afi once said, _to underestimate the tole it will take on not only the body, but the mind._

Though Nor Veg was technically united as a kingdom, its status was nubile and prone to sway. King Haraldr called himself King, and surely he acted every bit a king with a people awed by his victories, but Nor Veg is vast and his sight limited. He would know not to act until half of his kingdom _burned_.

"What choice do we have? We could gather the counties, even those from so far up north. Perhaps the Sami people could aid us?"

Brittany frowns and remembers the furred warriors upon the edges of Harald's forces, their faces hard and set with stone. "They were with Harald, I saw them. The reindeer herders?"

Far to the bitter north, where the air is so cold it can freeze a man's blood as solid as his bones, live a nomadic people that roam about the coasts and the mountains, living from what the land gives them. It is a hard life, living so far into the ice and the snow that nary a settler dares venture, but from it they have gained an invaluable knowledge of the land. They would be a welcome addition to their forces.

"Yes, them. Why would they be with Harald? Surely they know that their people will simply harass them if they succeed on their crusade."

"Perhaps they grow tired of us."

It's scarcely known fact that the Sami avoid the northern settlers. Very few villagers attempt to trade with them - the majority are the vikings that sail through on their way to another destination. Other countries, and often even people within their own kingdoms view the vikings as cruel, brash and unforgiving. One wrong impression can last twice as many lifetimes.

Not for the first time, Brittany curses her own people and their ways.

"What of the other counties? They would aid us." Daithi frowns. "But how do we relay the news to the Jarl? You will hunt the _draugr_, but by the time word reaches Kaupang the forests will have taken you."

"I could run there." Rory offers, shaking out his legs. It would only take him three half-suns to reach Kaupang and return with news. But then, he might have to run their response. It would be... trying.

"I have a way."

All eyes turn to Santana, who looks at them cautiously. "There somebody there I can talk to. I feel him from here. Like Samuel, but different."

"Styrr?" At Santana's nod, Brittany resists the urge to bare her teeth.

"San-"

"You no trust him, Britt." Santana interrupts with a knowing sigh. "I understand. But he our best choice. He tell your father now. No waiting."

She pauses, runs a hand over her light hair, before giving up with a disgruntled sigh. Brittany knows better than to argue with Santana when logic is on the line. "Fine. We need to know his answer as soon as possible."

Santana nods almost imperceptibly - her eyes are already glazed over, her head tilted into the glaringly blue sky. Her lips part as she seeks his essence through the threads of the Earth, stepping into the shadow that the light always presents. She shivers, feeling the darkness caress her arms, looking around at this ethereal world presented to her. Nothing appears but mere shapes; she spots what must be Brittany's body through the fog of her mind, for the center of its chest pulses with such a purely red light that it is her sole beacon in the dark.

**Styrr!**

Something stirs upon the winds and she gags on the now familiar stench of the bitter black - it stains the backs of her teeth once again but she knows the taste is simply imaginary. Much like how Eyja tastes of wildflowers and Brittany of mint, how her own magic leaves a lingering tang of smoke upon her tongue.

**You called, priestess?**

__His voice is the moaning wind that howls through the naked trees. It sends shudders up her spine and unease in her skull, but she holds firm.

**We have a message that needs to be delivered to Betar.**

She feels more that sees his intrigue, the dry chuckle ghosting through her head.

**And I am the one to do so?**

She growls and pushes forward, swiping away the darkness. Here, in this strange domain of half-truths and hidden secrets, she must be wary of the things that lurk out of sight.

**You will be, as it affects you as much as I. The army has arrived in Taunmark. I had a vision a few suns ago, saw its bulk... we will fall under such might; of that, there is no question. We must organize something to save ourselves from their blades.**

He pauses at that, rolling her words in his head. She knows that he can tell her truth from the way his voice grows lighter, yet more serious all at once. A true threat.

**Harald's forces? So soon?**

** It is hard to believe, but there must be hundreds, even thousands. They... they have my mother. **

** The High Priestess?**

** Yes.**

** She could be useful... I will send the news to Betar and return with his actions. Be swift.**

Santana has so many questions - the _draugr_, the black bile, the creeping shadows upon this town, but their connection cracks open and dies until light swirls back into the crevices of her world. She blinks twice, stumbles, her hand wrapping thankfully around the strong arm curled over her waist. Brittany watches her worriedly from above.

"Did it work?"

She nods, mindlessly taking the waterskin from Brittany's belt and taking large gulps without care for appearances. "He goes as we speak. I expect talk from him soon."

"It is all we can hope for, then."

In the distance, all those of the village have gathered to see them go. They huddle their children close to themselves and their weapons shine in the bright autumn sun; they are their final chance. If they fail, there is little saving them from the ire of the beast.

It's hard to think of their friend as a monster.

Daithi lets one hand fall upon each of their shoulders. Wherever he touches, his power seeps through them and settles itself next to their own, swelling through their veins until they are light and bloated with it. He smiles slightly, clapping them each on the back before stepping away.

"May the gods and goddesses be by your side, friends. Return home safely."

"As to you, Daithi. Be careful."

They stay and wave until the wilderness swallows them whole and they are left alone.

Brittany turns to Santana, running her fingers along the tainted charm. After so long of being the one to follow, it's refreshing to lead and have another person reliant on her abilities. Santana was always so independent in Botaya from such a young age, choosing to play along the deer runs of her home rather than joining the other children after their chores had been completed. _Sometimes_, her mami had told her once, _it is a lonely life, being a mystic. One must decide if this is the path they are willing to take. _But Ataecina has delivered her so much joy, she thinks as she steals another glance at her friend, that there is nothing else she'd rather be.

"Where did he go?"

Santana loops the charm around her middle finger, letting it fall from her palm until it dangles helplessly in the air. She chases the call of the forest and its outraged cries of housing something so unnatural, follows his growing unease at the lie of a life he lives. The charm lifts slowly in the air, lazing raising itself, until it points decisively ahead.

"North. He not move much, should find in two daywalks. Maybe three."

Brittany nods once, the set of her jaw hard, before offering out her hand.

So many things have changed between them. Santana wonders how days alone will work for them - whether this new connection will snap or make them better than before. It is so rare for a priestess to find a mate, one that is able to cope with the visions and the powers and the constant flux of a world that is too complex for any one person to understand. Having one is uncommon enough, but one of the same gender? Such uncharted territory... perhaps worth exploring. Santana has spent so long hiding from the gaze of others, masking her way of life so that she may live in peace. But this place is different, this _life _is different, and she refuses to simply continue the ways she has been. Not with Brittany watching her, blue eyes so wide and hopeful.

So with a deep breath, she takes her hand.

~.~.~.~.~

They walk until dusk begins to settle around their shoulders, the breath of the wind turning cold and biting against their face. It has just started to frost over, and the rivers still run clear - they decide to make their camp upon the bank of a burbling stream, at the edge of a clearing. The leaves are dry and cool to their touch as Brittany sweeps a portion of them away to begin their shelter. Her axe comes from her belt, its weight light in her hand, as she runs her fingers along the various different trees that make up the ancient forest. As Santana shuffles around for dead wood, Brittany steadies herself against a spindly beech tree and begins to chop.

Her father always made her help when they went hunting for wild boar in the summer. The bracers she wears now are from the first animal she killed - she's embarrassed to admit that she cried when she had taken out the spear and it had gasped its final, wheezing breath. They're ragged at the edges, hosting multiple new stitchings and replacement leather from all the blades she blocked with them, but the fur is as thick as when they were first made. It was wearing them that Betar taught her to make her first shelter.

Before she developed enough muscle to properly fell a tree, she had always been tasked with stripping the branches that had fallen. She hated it more than anything - splinters would get under her nails and her hands would be rubbed raw by the bark once she had finished.

Now, however, she finds it soothing - the sapling falls and she pries the bark from its trunk in long strips, laying them down to repeat the process until her arms burn and her knuckles ache from the grip of her axe. Once finished, she turns just in time to see Santana crouching over a fire pit, muttering a quiet word before light shoots from her fingers and the kindling springs to life.

Brittany raises an eyebrow and brings her materials nearer to the fire, dropping down to prepare them in comfort. "Cheating now?" She asks in amusement, drawing her knife and placing it against one of the larger branches. Santana glares at her from the corner of her eye, rubbing her palms together in an attempt to ward away the cold.

"Using what I have." She corrects, flipping the large hood over her head. Iberia had poorly prepared her for the coming winter upon the icy coasts of Nor Veg.

Brittany shakes her head and throws the spare bark shavings onto the fire until it crackles cheerily and casts long shadows upon their faces. The sky is beginning to deepen with darkness, yawning mouth opening to release the stars it holds. Through the branches of the trees they spy the constellations, forever constant; _Leiðarstjarna, _the brightest of them all for many reaches, hovers overhead.

Does her mother see the same sky from where she's held? Taunmark is deceptively close to the lower sprawl of Nor Veg, where the fjords have used their bulk to carve themselves forever into the cliff facings. Merely a few days sailing could land them right in their ports. It only took a sun to get to from Aarhus, no matter how much a lifetime ago it seems.

Santana rolls her white necklace in her hand thoughtfully, feeling the constant pulse of her mother's heartbeat. Why haven't they killed her yet? Surely they know keeping a High Priestess chained within their grounds will bring nothing but trouble and the constant looming threat of death. Perhaps her mother seems friendly, but there is the current of Ataecina's wrath that runs through her and makes her as unpredictable as the summer storms. One lapse in concentration could find them in the middle of a hurricane unable to be controlled.

"What are you thinking of?" Brittany enquires, beginning to form their shelter. She drives the longest sapling into the ground and lashes it upright by the means of a crossbar, winding the long, tough strips of bark over and over until it moves little. After, she leans the branches upon the horizontal piece, leaving only one opening into which they can crawl.

"My mother," Santana replies, watching Brittany lay pine boughs over the leaning sticks to cover the gaps, "and where she is. Why she came north. How they caught her... she always very careful. More than me."

She can't remember how many times her mother fondly swatted her on the nose after dropping her countless objects or getting into trouble with the village folk. _My mouth moves on its own, Mami_, a younger Santana had whined to her once, _it is impossible to help. Especially from the way they all stare like a herd of stunned cattle. Honestly, one would think they had more brains than a common animal._

Despite her darker skin that betrayed her as one with Moorish blood (perhaps Moroccan, her mother never told), the boys of her old village had an endless time seemingly devoted to trying to sway her with ridiculous little things. They would bring her food, compliment her, limp over to their home over insignificant little hurts in hope that she would treat their wounds. (Wound is a generous term, for they were nothing more than little scratches with pinpricks of blood.) What spurred on their advances was arguably the fact that she never seemed interested in the slightest.

She grew well versed in the art of denial, almost as potent as the mockery she would often indulge in to leave them but an affronted mask of their previous confident exterior. It pains her still that she's unable to communicate so cleverly with the men here.

"You sound close with her." Brittany remembers nothing of having a mother - one small, simple memory, hazed and shrouded in the smoke of war is all she has left of her. She's not bitter; Afi said that she died in glorious combat, and waits for her in the halls of Valhalla. Simply curious.

"I am. I live with her long time, learn everything from her. Plants, healing, magic. She teach me how to use blue power. She one that saved me from Harald's warriors. She... she was all I had."

_Until I met you_.

That unspoken confession hangs silent in the air, and Santana is acutely aware of Brittany's blinding grin as she goes about her tasks.

"You were from... Botaya, you said? Tell me about it."

"It was-"

The world darkens and Brittany fades out of perspective - Santana lurches upon her perch by the fire and hunches over, hand clutching her head as she squeezes her eyes shut and fights the chill that sits itself down in the center of her chest.

**I have news for you, priestess.**

Styrr materializes before her, half-hidden by shadow, tendrils of it running down the stark whiteness of his arms. She groans and glares into his eyes that have become nothing but bottomless pits. He weeps trails of black.

**What do you want?**

** He wants help. Reinforcements. He is not willing to dispatch his people upon the whim of a mystic.**

Rage fills her, and she staggers to her feet. The ruby upon her staff pulses with a disjointed fury, amplified in the utter nothingness presented to them. Phantom fingers steadily grip her biceps.

**Am I not enough for him? What more does he want, the bodies of the dead?**

His fingers uncurl and the world is given to them in crystalline detail; they swoop over the legions that gather upon the mainland, casting their infinite eye over the men sharpening their swords and creating great, massive piles for the deceased, their corpses burning in the angry flames. Even here, leagues and leagues away, the stench is overpowering. She gags, and nothing but black comes out. Harald surveys them all with a critical eye, standing tall next to her mother, still bound in shackles with her ever-present circle of useless priests.

_Mami, _Santana thinks sorrowfully, one hand raising to her, _I will bring you home._

The woman in the cage raises her head at the same time the tiny nephew does, and the image shatters. Once again they stand in the abyss.

**Find allies. Forces. Nor Veg is vast, and many wish to keep their connection to the old gods. If you prove yourself and gather an army, Betar will appeal to the king and Kaupang will join the war.**

** But... how long do we have?**

Styrr is grim as he fades from her sight.

**Not long, Santana. I will help how I can here - I am not to die this moon. Be cautious... monsters lurk in the most pleasant of faces.**

The first thing she realizes when colour returns to her world is the fact that she shakes, from her head to the tips of her toes, caught in the slimy ice the darkness always presents. She groans and grits her teeth, but leans over regardless to cough out more of the darkness that has taken up residence inside her. As always the taste is unnatural, and she gratefully curls her fingers over a waterskin gently pushed into her hands when she finishes.

They sit in silence for a moment - Brittany's arm wrapped firmly around her shoulders is all that anchors her to the world of life and light. Santana swallows, spits out a mouthful of tainted water, and buries her feet into Sandalio's fur. "He want more people." She says, breaking the silence. Her voice is hoarse - the sound of an old crone after a lifetime of suffering.

"Father?"

_Yes._

_ How many?_

_ Too many. _

Brittany feels Santana's despair like a hovering mountain, squeezing them between the rock of the sky and stone of the earth. Her whole being aches so fiercely for her mother that she feels it by default, a staggering longing for a woman that she had never met. There is nothing she can do, nothing short than swearing her dying breath to rescuing this person that means so much to her (lover?) friend; so she does in low, quiet wording, letting each syllable sink into Santana's ear.

In return the priestess shakes her head, tone sharp. "Brittany, stop saying things like that."

She curls away, hurt. "Why not?"

Santana softens, gingerly running her nails over what she thinks to be Brittany's veins. "Apologies, I not mean to be so harsh. But... when you say that, it mean I going to lose you one day. And I... I cannot. Not now. Not after all this."

Brittany smiles but it is sad - she, of all people, knows of mortality for her whole life had been constructed around it. "Okay. I promise."

She doesn't know what she's promising for, but she'll strive with all she is to fulfil it.

"We should go to bed."

And when they curl in together on that half-finished shelter, tangling together for respite against the biting wind, Santana watches over Brittany's shoulder as each shadow begins to take on a life of its own.

_**I come to you.**_

__She buries her face in Brittany's neck and wishes the world away.

~.~.~.~.~

**September 10****th****, 912**

He's here.

Santana feels him as she feels the earth around her - strongly, without barriers. The charm in her hand vibrates with its effort to return to its holder and the grass where he has stepped is yellow and dead, destroyed by the rot that falls from him when he walks. In fact, all sense of life has diminished; the forest is silent. Nothing calls to them. No birds in the trees, no clash of antlers, no hum of incests. Nothingness. The strangeness of the air sends even Brittany into caution, her eyes darting from one cluster of trees to another in order to discern that haunted face within its leaves.

Her fingers tighten within Brittany's own until she crushes them, the air thick with stale blood and old regrets. Here the whirlwind of his thoughts is a monsoon, pelting her under their enormity, dragging her down and binding her to the ground. Everywhere is the invisible touch of the darkness, reacting to the seed she now knows has been planted within her. She clamps her mouth closed and refuses to let it grow.

They slow, their booted feet cracking only softly upon the branches, wary at how the charm has begun to waver in the air. Santana sees him first - his bulk, now grown to the height of the tallest man she's ever seen, sheds its skin in disgusting sheets, drooping from him to expose the fraying muscles within. He carries the stench of death, so very potent, in his husk. Even from there, she knows that head of hair anywhere. She closes her eyes and stifles Brittany's gasp with the palm of her hand when she sees him. __

"Are you ready?" Santana asks her in a whisper, turning to face her friend. Brittany whimpers and shakes her head from side to side, biting her lip so hard Santana fears it will draw blood.

"I don't think I will ever ever be ready, San."

Her heart breaks for her friend - she covers Brittany's hands, so tight upon her spear.

"You can do this," she whispers, "you can do it for him."

A single tear spills down a fair cheek, rolling from watery eyes. Despite everything, he is still her friend. When the metal bites down, she will be killing a little piece of herself. "I c-cannot do it, please don't make me... I don't want to kill him again..."

Santana swallows, eyes darting back and forth between hers, before she shuffles closer and cups both cheeks in her palms. Brittany draws in a shuddering breath just as Santana leans forward and kisses her.

It is brief, but Brittany melts regardless. Their ruby flares in the shadow of the trees and booms to the sound of her heartbeat - Santana can count the flutters in Brittany's pulse, lightning fast, as every sense she's ever had comes alive. Here, upon the edge of darkness, the light fractures and flows upon her shoulders to play tricks upon the planes of her face until she extends and expands and never ends. Brittany never ends, for an ending implies a start, and Santana can't remember if they ever began. They, as always, simply _were._

When Santana pulls back her eyes glimmer one in the same, but there is a compassion in them. "Then do it for me."

There is a moment of hesitation before Brittany nods and leans forward for another soft kiss; she shivers when Santana whispers _good luck_ against her mouth, open and hot, before disappearing into the foliage of the trees.

Brittany is left alone.

_For both of them,_ she thinks to herself as she rises from her knees, _do it for them._

She steps into the clearing, and Samuel finds her as quickly as he always has.

The warrior stares into those eyes, layered over and misshapen with death, seeking anything of the boy she used to know. His head is turned and his hands are suspended half-way towards her body, like he can't make up his mind. For she is the gravity that pulls and the force that repels, such a paradox that his head betrays his body and he stays frozen instead.

_(She is his salvation and his redemption and the beat of her heart is so loud, boom boom boom, and he will never forget the sound again.)_

"Make this easy for me, Samuel." She begs, raising her spear and advancing towards him. Her feet are silent but to her the procession is an army, so slow that crushes galaxies beneath her weight. "Stop fighting, _vinur_, you have earned your rest." He looks at her impassively and she sees the flickers of darkness crawling across his skin, escaping his mouth in rotten mist that seeps past his ears and out his nose. She halts merely a few paces from him, point so close that when he sways it presses against the useless flesh. "Samuel?"

_**Your purpose has not been fulfilled! Fight to stay where you belong!**_

His hand clamps tightly around the head of her spear, and Brittany yelps when she is suddenly reeled into his sharp jaws.

_(No, _no_, he doesn't want this, he doesn't want to hurt the girl with the thundering heart and the blinding eyes, and if he could he would cry as he opens his mouth to bite.)_

She lets go the moment she sees the row of jagged teeth, knowing her strength is no match for his. Instead she rolls away, behind him, unsheathing her axe in one smooth motion and rising once again to her feet. With the back of one hand she wipes away the moisture in her eyes, gritting her jaw and trusting in the blade of her axe to deliver the final blow.

Samuel stares at her spear for a moment, considering, before he tosses it aside with a grunt. Such complicated objects are of no use to him. Instead, he relies on his unholy strength and lumbering speed as he staggers towards her, jaw hanging open in a rattling moan. Shivers crawl up the length of Brittany's spine.

_Such terror must be why he claims so many victims._

She dodges the first swipe of his clumsy hands, ducking out of the second and bringing her axe down in a sweeping arc for the third. There is a moment of resistance before she meets blood and bone, the savagery of the cut chewing through his putrefying flesh to reach the skeleton beneath. Brittany grunts and ignores the pain in her shoulder from such a strange angle, her grip so hard it could shatter bones, drawing away only when his hand thumps to the grasses below.

Nothing stops him. Though his limb twitches and shrivels below his feet, he simply limps forwards again, accelerating into a fast walk with his newly severed stump extended towards her. Brittany sees her handiwork, the jagged bone poking from the disgusting flesh, and resists the urge to vomit. His charm still dangles from what used to be his wrist.

_(He is nothing she is nothing the world is nothing, there is no pain from his wounds nor any falter to his steps - he follows and kills and eats like an animal; but even animals have hearts. He loathes all he has become.)_

There is supposed to be a separation between the living and the dead. A canyon, a chasm that falls into eternity so nobody can stand in the space between. One should resist playing with oblivion as it forever comes to take its prize - as piece by piece Brittany systematically destroys his husk, the ropes binding Samuel over the world weaken. What remains of his tortured soul begins to yearn to leave the prison it has been trapped in, knowing the whispering hints of mortality once again as his arm falls from his shoulder and he finally, for the first time, stares at the lump where it should have been.

He feels but the phantom of what _used to be_, before his fingers rotted and slowed and his bones showed from through his ruptured skin. When he was like her, all light and lifelike with eyes that burned with their intensity. Was this... all he could be?

_**Finish what you have begun.**_

His shredded remaining hand goes for her - he pushes through the way her axe sinks awkwardly into his bicep and snares a tangle of her long braid, her skin searing against the unfeeling flesh of his arm. She grunts, one hand circling around his wrist while the other finds the underneath of his jaw, leaving her weapon abandoned in his muscle. Her heart _throbs_ and it is deafening, shaking all that he is, and her lips form words he no longer understands. His mouth is so close to her throat now, so _close_, he can smell how the blood flows through her veins and how it will meet with his own blackened to nothing, how her life will erase his death and he will remember how to breath. If only he could just-

The world cracks in two and trees scream in pain as a flower of light blooms in the sky, blinding all around them in a devouring fire. It twists in and out on itself and courses towards him with the roar of a dragon; in it he sees the universe spread out before him a millisecond before it hits and he becomes nothing but the center of the blaze.

It burns and chews through his drooping flesh - its anger knocks him away from his victim, turning his hair into fingers of white-hot fury, scorching the grass underneath his feet. For the first time in what seems forever he can _feel_ - it eclipses the dark's hold over him and he howls to the sky. _(It is a sound of defeat, a sound of acceptance. The sun is brighter, clearer. He knows what is to come.) _

The Whirlwind with eyes so pure and hands of emptiness stares at him from the tree line. He sees eternity in her gaze and the sadness that etches itself down into the quick of what she is. Samuel has become the comet hurtling down to earth, the supernova that erases all - his brilliance is so consuming that he barely feels the cold steel under the remaining softness of his chin.

_(He knows he is going to die; some small part of him senses and rejoices in the nothingness that will follow. If he could, he would be happy. But instead he stands and stares and tries to remember her face when all else will turn to darkness.)_

Brittany's breath stutters as her grip twists anxiously on her reclaimed spear; Santana waits behind them with hands of halos and Samuel stands motionless in all his burning glory (half his face has fallen away and his stare is empty, a yawning socket connected to places unknown). She is collapsing under their combined weight, tip wavering, muscles shaking with her sorrow.

"Forgive me, Samuel," she chokes, "forgive me. I never meant for you to die another death."

With a final sob, she drives the spear through the casing of Samuel's skull.

It happens all too quickly. There is a crack, a turn of his neck, the boom of his body as it hits the ground. Brittany stares at the chasm her spear has made as she yanks it away; with its purpose fulfilled his fire extinguishes itself with a soft hiss. As the steam rises up into the air, something else leaves her, too.

Santana steps up beside her. "Brittany..." She sees how every part of her trembles, her cheeks pinking with the effort it takes to hold in her sadness.

"Take him away." Her request is quiet, barely spoken. A whisper of a word.

Dark brows furrow. "What?"

"We... I refuse to leave him like this. Not after they corrupted his body so."

Silence follows, so Brittany turns to her, eyes gleaming. "Santana, _please._"

One hand raises and the dimmed light grows and swells until it nips at the skin of her fingers. Santana's palm faces his corpse; his head is turned towards them as another boom sounds and the claws of the flame rake into his belly. She doesn't look away.

It is only when nothing but ash remains does Brittany start to cry, and Santana is there to catch her when she falls.

~.~.~.~.~

_"Is... is it over?"_

_ "This chapter, my child. There will always be more to tell."_

_ "Do they know?"_

_ "In time. Their grief is still new, fresh. Traumatized."_

_ "I wish I could help them... I miss them so. They have so many things ahead that will be impossible to overcome alone."_

_ "Ah, but they are together. And remember, my child, your story is not yet finished."_

_ "But I am... here. Dead."_

_ "No one ever said death was the end."_

~.~.~.~.~

Hours pass and Santana composes music into the frenzy of Brittany's mind to still it into silence, her shapeless words bursts of colour in thoughts turned to darkness. She weaves nothing into tangible matter, letting novels fall into place with the soft hush of their breathing slowing into synch, the phantom sting of Brittany's tears upon her tongue the holiest of things.

His taste is heavy upon the air they breathe. It smells like smoke and death and something else; not a scent but a feeling, missed glances and second chances that will rise as this scorched earth heals. For the first time Brittany leans into her, seeming smaller than she is, and Santana doesn't tell her that her clothes rub her burned hands raw. She doesn't notice it.

Eventually they fall into perfect tandem, the gale of their breath opposing storms that clash in the pocket where their bodies do not. Each exhale presses low into Santana's stomach - where she feels her heart would beat, if it could - under the splay of Brittany's large hand against her belly, hot through her robes. She tries to focus on what she knows, what she thinks is right, but all her mind is telling her is that Brittany is so suffocatingly close that she counts the spider-silk fine eyelashes that brush against her face, the dark pink of her mouth hidden behind parted lips, the flex of her thighs around her hips, and that she blocks the sun until she is everything her galaxy becomes.

Something is changing - she knows the exact second it dawns on her, because Brittany opens her eyes and she gets lost in an ocean, thrown against the rocks of the shore only to be sucked away by the tide. She sees it in there too, the subtle nuance of how Brittany looks at her like moonlight pouring over the plains, spellbound and ethereal.

She wants to be scared. She wants to run from all these things that rear up so loudly in the pit of her chest, where Brittany has made up her home, but she promised to be brave. Promises have to start somehow and some_when_, so when they lock eyes, her heart stops but she doesn't look away.

"Okay?" Her voice is reverent and but a whisper of noise to keep the peace, a trembling hand tracing the curve of her pelvis.

Brittany smiles and when she sighs the trees rattle along with her exhale. "Eventually."

They gravitate as all things do so closely wound together, the pull of their poles twisting and twining until Santana tastes her breath and can feel her heart pulsing in the hollows of her ears and she shouldn't want this but she does, so _so _badly-

Sandalio, previously unseen, growls menacingly into the trees beyond.

"One would think you would step away from the body of a monster to mourn."

A voice from the shadows floats on the wind and they look up in tandem, scrambling to their feet in a tangle of limbs. Brittany rubs at her red-rimmed eyes but her voice is steady when she replies, "Who goes there?"

Quiet rustling in the bush; the vegetation moved by its bulk is high and reaching, far over their heads.

"Nothing but a wanderer. But you, Bretagne Piersson, come far from home."

His - _his, _evidenced by the low rumble of his laugh - tongue has a lilt to it, a foreign flourish muddling his well-spoken words. "You seem surprised. Have you not heard those of the forest know all that goes on in their domain?"

"The forest belongs to none but the beasts." Brittany replies with a frown.

"Ah... then what am I?"

A figure breaks its way through the brush, and there is a jolt of remembrance that shocks them into inaction. Eyes twinkling with mischief peer down at them from over wide shoulders and a regal face. He is the trembling of the earth, and each step he takes resonates up through their bones.

"You act as though you have never seen a single _kéntauros _before."

~.~.~.~.~

They learn that his name is Hypatos - son of Sophos, rider of the forests. Curly black hair hangs in shaggy waves over his head, obscuring eyes the shade of spring moss. Slung over his bare chest is a bow of masterful creation, shiny yew painted to perfection until it is a violent plethora of colour; strange, flowing letters crawl along the belly of his weapon in an unknown language. Stones that shine with an internal glow chain around his neck to thump at the deep hollow of his throat.

When he moves, nary the grass murmurs of his passing, yet his weight breaks the surface. As Brittany eyes the hooves that create great, weeping scars within the earth, the presence of the pendant around her neck grows into her thoughts.

"I am surprised that one of the _anthrōpos _could destroy the dead. Your little bodies break far too easily to combat those that do not wish to die."

Santana frowns to herself and takes a cautionary step back - his words are light, surely, but she trusts neither man nor beast (nor anything between) until they prove themselves a friend. "Where you live, clan-man?" She asks, eyes darting around the forests. They'd seen not a trace of activity in the days they travelled, all branches unbroken and paths untouched.

Hypatos narrows his eyes as he replies. "Not far from here. Why do you ask, priestess?"

_He could be an ally._

Brittany turns to her in surprise. _Him? Truly?_

_The centaurs are of superior speed and talent with archery. They know these forests._

_How would we convince them?_ Brittany furrows her brows, unaware of his curious stare upon them both. _We have nothing to offer._

This time Santana smirks - part of Brittany is wary by the way it sharpens so, but another side of her takes the thrill from the dangerous expression. _We have an oath._

Her hand flies up to touch her chest and feel the slick surface of the jewels underneath her fingers. Hypatos stomps upon the ground anxiously as she reaches into her shirt with nervous eyes, one of his arms floating back to his bow ever so slightly.

But he freezes as she pulls it from hiding; it catches the glare of the sun and it _burns_ in her hand, the crevices between the thick chain still stained with his brother's lifeblood and its eyes those of the deepest sea. Its mouth now gapes open to reveal sharp ivory fangs. It brings back memories of copper and hard steel and the cold edge of death.

"Is that..."

"I ask the aid of your people." Brittany says shakily, her hand clamped into a tight fist. "I have honoured the blood-oath of your chieftain's son, slain in battle moons ago by a lone troll in the forests near my home of Kaupang."

Hypatos gingerly moves closer, his fingers gently lifting the charm from the air. He remembers summers of running through the forest with him, practising their archery and creating mischief around the grove. Playing tricks on the fae-people, luring blushing dryads out from their homes, dancing around the dim-witted trolls whom lived under the shallow bridge. All of it gone. All because of a simple argument between father and son.

"We had suspected that he had fallen," he says quietly, leaving the charm to Brittany, "but knew not where his body lay. Was... was it swift?"

The apologetic expression upon both their faces tells otherwise.

A rage fills him, bright and hot like that which dwells in his heathen brothers. "I will take you to Philokrates." Hypatos proclaims fiercely, drawing up to his full height. "He will wish to know what became of him... he was very fond of Pantheras. Called him his most honourable son, though he had many to spare. He was to be the one that led us through the ages."

Santana, ever curious, draws up beside the centaur as they begin their trek through the trees. Brittany falls into pace next to her, equally captivated.

"What cause such break between him and Pantheras?" She asks, eyes calculating.

Hypatos snorts. "Though they were of the same blood, they could be no different if they were born of separate elements. Pantheras wished to embrace what we once were - the wild ways of the hunt and the feral mannerisms of our ancestors. They never saw as equals."

"Ancestors?"

"Ah, yes... you foreigners have yet to learn of our history. Very well, then. I will be your mentor."

He takes a deep breath, almost as if the tale takes the energy from him simply to recall.

"Many, many years ago, when the gods had simply begun to grasp the enormity of the land they were tasked to oversee, there was a mad king. He had done many horrible things and was reviled by his former people. The Fates were cruel to him in all manners of his life - the Father-God, Zeus, took pity on this mortal and invited him to dine with the rest of the deities high up on their mountain."

"Zeus?" Santana muses. "What a strange name for a god."

Hypotas glares. "No stranger than yours of the south."

"But this king - Ixion, was his name - was mad because his nature was corrupt. He grew lustful of Zeus' wife, Hera, thinking of her day and night and knowing little but his appetite for her. Zeus knew, as the Father-God knows all things, and struck him down with a thunderbolt; so great was his fury that he stopped not at him, but brought his shame down upon his children."

Here, the centaur makes a face. His hand opens and wisps of light gather in his palm, forming a hazy image of an unsightly figure; it drools and limps and staggers its way across the flesh of his hand. Santana wrinkles her nose in distaste, while Brittany produces a muttered _ew_ from beside them.

"His name was Centaurus." Hypotas informs them. "He was deformed, depraved, disgusting. Nobody wanted him, and so he lived on his own with the mountain horses to the south. Only here did he find peace... and love, one would say."

The image flickers - it morphs and twists on itself until his torso is mounted on the body of a mighty stallion, straightening itself out and growing large with bulging muscle. Even here his expression is fearsome, bared teeth and gleaming eyes to create a... feral appearance. Truly more beast than man.

"Is that..."

"Yes. His offspring, born of the mares that lived on the hills."

Brittany scrunches her nose. "So you were made of an actual mating between man and horse? Would that not... hurt?"

"If the human was female," Hypotas admits, pointedly ignoring Santana's laughter, "but as it was the opposite, there was no pain involved."

"Oh, okay." A pause. "But surely the entire race was not made from one instance."

"I would get there if the both of you stopped interrupting."

Santana rolls her eyes but Brittany nudges her until she grudgingly raises her hands, beckoning him to continue.

"We were known across the lands for being a violent race. For a long time we had succumbed to our bestial urges and took what we wanted, without care or qualm for what others wanted. Much like some of your people, Bretagne." She glares at him from the side, but can't find it in herself to disagree. "Eventually, the others had enough. They made the mistake of inviting us to a feast in an attempt to civilize us. Wine was presented, the first we had ever seen. And, well... let us say that it simply made our control problem worsen."

"There was slaughter." Santana says knowingly.

"Much." He agrees. "So much so that we were nearly destroyed. Those that had brains in their skulls retreated back to the forests - they were the ones that sought to throw away their bestial state and embrace higher learning. They were led by a centaur by the name of Chiron. He was unmatched in medicine and magic alike, and had trained great heroes over the ages. All looked up to him as a mentor and a leader."

Here he sighs, shaking his head. "It was not to last. There was another brush with fate, and this time it was for the worse. Another day, another battle, no? Except in this a hero was involved - his name does not matter, that is a tale for a different time - and he held poisonous arrows, of which one drop would kill any living thing instantly. Centaurs attacked, and he responded. Chiron was caught in the fray."

Santana raises her eyebrows in surprise. "He killed by his student?" _Such irony is not befitting such a noble being_, she thinks sadly, refusing to draw the conclusions she sees creating thin parallels between her own life.

"Close. Chiron was immortal - when he was struck by the arrow it did not kill, but wound grievously. He was cursed to live in great pain for the rest of his existence. So he turned to Zeus and begged him to take his life and allow him peace. The god took pity upon Chiron, who had helped him many times in the past, and turned him into a constellation of which we can still see to this day. His light guides my people even now."

"A glorious death." Brittany says approvingly, brushing a branch from the trail. "His people should be honoured."

"They were." Hypotas agrees, sidestepping a small gully. Above them the sky burns a dull orange as the sun finally hides itself behind the mountains, patiently waiting for night to fall. Santana shivers as the tame winds take on the chill of the dark. "But some took it as a sign for change."

"Nikostratos was Chiron's brother, younger by only a few decades and nearly as wise. It was only fitting that he was the one to take up the position of leader after the former had perished, for he was the one they looked up to the most in those dark times. He looked across his lands, torn by constant violence, and vowed for change. Within the next few months, a force of several hundred had been gathered. They set out one summer morn in hopes of a better life."

Brittany watches him with utmost attention, drawn into the dancing sprites that wander around his body. A stampede of centaurs trample across the air in which they cross, the clash of their hooves upon the dirt replicated by the thump of their own feet hitting the stone of the riverside. Beech trees rustle and form the wind of their voices carrying across the plains.

"Ten years of wandering to find a new home." Hypotas shakes his head - his fingers flicker and the sprites still, laying down in exhaustion beneath the boughs of nubile trees. "We were tired when we found ourselves here, thin and weak from endless running and the painful cold that chilled. It took us what you would deem generations to fully establish ourselves within the forests."

"Is that when you started to appear to us?" Brittany remembers her grandfather telling tales of his father's father, how they already knew of the centaurs but bothered them little. It was before them that the first contact took place.

"Yes, that would be the time." Hypotas leaps over a running stream and his muscles flex gracefully from under his hide, long legs stretching until his hooves dig into the sandy bank on the opposite side. Brittany and Santana must content themselves with perilously crossing a small clutch of rocks that scatter the stream. "We had established ourselves by then. You see, Nikostratos was wise, and knew much in the way of nature. His brother had taught him the secrets of his craft, the requirements to build them something out of nothingness. His voice never silenced for three weeks straight, until the song he had been weaving was complete."

To demonstrate, Hypotas turns to a small sapling. They stall behind him, confused, as he begins to sing - high, warbling notes that drop and gain power the longer it goes on until they see the very threads of his voice upon the air. Brittany passes her fingers through and the warmth is startling, jumping back into Santana and nearly knocking her over.

Santana, for her part, watches with rapt fascination. Is this...

"Galdr?" She whispers thoughtfully to Brittany, watching the small tree sink in its roots and grow.

"Galdr." Brittany says in affirmation, craning her neck to witness the new branches.

"That was his talent. He grew a home for us out of the trees, which we hollowed and used as homes. They are proud things, a city of leaves, that no one has yet discovered. In its heart is the _Mi̱téra-Déntro - _theMother-Tree, Bretagne, look not so confused - which took us a full two winters to complete. Nikostratos was pleased with his work, as a leader should be, and grew tired. A mere two hundred years ago he finally joined his brother in the sky, and Philokrates has led us ever since.

"His son, Pantheras, is the one that you had met." He adds as he comes to the end of his tale, noting their awed expressions. "What?"

"He live..." Santana does quick calculations in her head. "for five _hundred_ years? Surely you jest. No being live that long."

Brittany's mind is reluctant to grasp such a number. "Were my people even in existence five hundred years ago?"

Hypotas shakes his head, but his smile is amused. "Mortals hold such trivial concepts of time. What they deem as lifetimes are merely phases of ours. You will see, soon enough, that if you learn to let go of what you have known, the world becomes open to you."

The grass changes underneath their feet, flattened down by the impression of hooves against the dirt. From a distance is the soft murmuring of many voices hushing together into one delicate stream of noise; Santana notes the syllables are smooth around the edges, flowing in a way that holds none of the harshness Norse represents. It reminds her so of home.

The first trees that differ from the others come into their vision - Brittany trails her fingers along the massive trunks with her mouth gaping open, peeking into the hollows and twisting her neck as far as it may go to view the massive canopy that shields them from the sky. Thousands of branches twist together until there is nothing but cracks of dusk that filter down through the leaves; she imagines what it must be like in summer, racing through the pathways with only the fractured dapple of sunlight upon your shoulders to light the way. Everything would be drowned in the scent of the earth. She's a child with her enthusiasm, darting every which way in order to best spot the next wonder.

"San, San!" She calls, excitedly pressing her palms against one trunk and sticking her head into a large hole within the wood. "They've whole houses in here! I can see the-" a voice, and she quickly jerks away, "oh, my apologies, miss. I meant no harm." Santana smirks and takes her wrist to prevent her from wandering off.

"Keep locals on our side, yes?" She grins and Brittany smiles sheepishly, scratching the back of her neck in assent. "I suppose that would be wisest."

Eyes turn to them as they finally reach what must be the center of town. Hypotas hovers protectively over them, his hooves occasionally clipping their heels, shoulders proudly pulled back and his gaze severe. He looks every bit the handsome noble he would undoubtedly be should he have been born a mortal. Even now, with the intimidating but obviously healthy bulk of his horse-body, he is a magnificent sight. The centaurs part for them, all watching the two humans as they are steered by their guide.

"Santana, look." Brittany whispers, pointing upwards. Santana follows her arm until she spies an intertwined series of branches, so thick they could be the width of her hips, forming bridges between the trees. Centaurs cross between them with care, the click of their hooves sharp against the wood. "They must be able to mount the trunks." She pauses, then crinkles her nose. "Bad choice of words."

Santana coughs loudly to hide her laughter.

At last, they reach what must be the fabled _Mi̱téra-Déntro_. Neither of them have ever seen a building, in any sense of the word, so very _vast_ - it must cover leagues and leagues, its leaves as long as their forearms and massive roots erupting from the soil underneath their feet in staggering gnarled tendrils, burrowing deep or rearing so high they could climb until the centaurs below were the size of gnomes. Upon every single branch they are weighed by scintillating charms, clinking against each other in the quiet breeze, catching and refracting every beam of light that falls through the canopy. It casts the tree in an otherworldly glow; Santana whispers a quiet prayer and Brittany stares with slack-jawed awe.

Before they are able to enter, Hypotas stops them with a sturdy hand on both of their shoulders. "I must warn you before we confront Philokrates," he says gravely, eyes shifting between them, "that Bretagne should be the one talking. She is the one that holds the amulet."

Brittany grimaces, her little finger curling around Santana's own. "But Santana is the one good with words." She counters hopefully. "I mix them up and say the opposite of what I mean. I've no ability for arguments."

"It should still be you."

"But..."

Santana frowns, sensing the eyes of the population on her. She turns over her shoulder, studying the way they linger on her form. Something is amiss here - she feels it in her chest. Not a heaviness like in the towns, but a... wrongness. An uneasiness in a completely different sense.

"There something else." She says quietly, turning back to them. Brittany looks at her quizzically, but their guide shifts on the spot. "What you hide, Hypotas?"

He struggles with himself a moment, but her stone-edge gaze breaks his resolve. He sighs and bends down to her level, the seriousness on his face strange for somebody so youthful. "These people are of nature, Santana. It is their Mother and their Father - they worship it as much as the gods upon Olympus."

"And I am not?" She asks, affronted.

"No, I have no doubt of that. Even now I feel the Goddess around the air that you breath. But, priestess..." He hesitates, glancing around.

"There is a darkness within you." Hypotas says softly. "They feel it, as I do. They do not trust whatever it may be."

_A darkness?_ Whatever deep, forgotten crevices of her mind she has so ached to cast away whisper their return - she tastes the blackness and futilely swallows to rid it from her mouth. _It is of Styrr's doing._ She growls to herself, cursing the man. _Whatever he has done lingers upon me like a shroud. _

Surely days (weeks?) without his touch, so very far away, will rid her of this ridiculous affliction. She looks at him, frustrated despite Brittany's soothing touch upon her hand.

"It is of a man I know," she says in annoyance, "his touch corrupt all it linger on, but I took aid from him once. It not me."

"I understand, priestess." Hypotas agrees, though his cautious eyes say otherwise.

A tug on her wrist - Brittany turns her gently with burden placed over her furrowed brows. "It will pass," she says earnestly, brushing her thumb over Santana's knuckles, "and when it does, all will be right. His influence must take time to fade." She does not need to mention the subtle changes in Santana to convey her concern; the nightmares, the bile, the white frenzy. "Keep hope, okay? We will sort this out."

Her smile is contagious, and soon Santana sports a small one of her own. "It hard to say no when you look at me like that."

"Well, I suppose I should keep on this way." Her face turns ridiculous and Santana snorts, dropping her forehead momentarily against her collarbone, pulling away hastily when she remembers they are far from alone.

"You will be the death of me, one day." She admits with a shake of her head.

Brittany's smile turns softer, meant for her alone. "I could say the same."


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: I'm sorry for the delay, everybody, but I'm sure you know by now that with the Christmas break nearing everything is getting a little hectic in terms of scheduling. I've had this chapter in mind for a while now, it was just the actual writing of it I found near impossible with the time. Regardless! Here it is, chapter 14 in all its shiny-new quality. It might be a bit shorter than the last few, but I assure you you'll like what you find.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 14<strong>

**something always brings me back to you**

**it never takes too long**

**September 12****th****, 912**

The echo of voices halt when they enter the room.

Hypotas follows behind, the click of his hooves sharp and severe, and he has placed guiding hands of both of their shoulders. Brittany lets her anxiety show plainly in the crease of her brow and the worried set of her jaw, but Santana feels the full intensity of their stares like a solid sea pressed upon her chest. His hand is smothering, prickling along her skin and causing unpleasant shivers to wrack her body, but her features are impassive. She will not be judged by these people who know nothing of her.

Hushed murmurs ripple across the vast space in waves; in the eternity it takes to walk to the heart they study the hollowed belly of the tree and how it reaches far above what they can see, growing further and further until it must even break through the cover of cloud. Alcoves are carved in its sides in staggered intervals, accessed by a winding slope wide enough for even the bulkiest centaur. Though it was daytime when they first entered, it seems the whole space is hung in an eternal twilight_—_charms, much like the ones seen swaying on the outside branches, dangle down from strings and hooks until it is awash in a swirling aura of light that shifts so often the tree breathes with its glow, everything inhaling and exhaling to the timed shadows that brush across its mighty wood.

Though flanked by two winding ramps that disappear into the ether of this celestial place, the single raised platform at its core is no less imposing. Upon it stands a mighty beast with hair of creeping frost and eyes dark as the midnight sun_—_on his bare chest rests precious amulets and talismans from an array of lost civilizations, and his imposing bulk is weathered, his dark hide seen many battles both won and lost. As he raises his head to inspect them, they get the distinct feeling he could be as old as time itself.

"Ti sas éfere se ména?" He asks with an edge to his voice, slowly moving to the lip of his wooden throne so he can fully take in the intruders upon his city.

(Truly a magnificent sight is city of leaves.)

The muscles in Hypotas' fingers clench, and Santana winces as he squeezes down upon the tender muscle of her shoulder. "I have brought you the two who killed the dead man in the forest."

A frenzy of whispering breaks out, and Brittany takes the time to scan the crowd. Though it is obvious which have taken on the burden of old age, she sees no children here; they are all strong and able, their bodies mature while their eyes young. Perhaps the one closest to them stands in the corner, her head held high in curiosity even as she sweeps her blonde hair from her eyes.

"Gno̱rízete tous kanónes mas!" Hypotas speaks Norse out of respect for them, but this man does not seem fond of the idea. His teeth are white against the dusky background when he snaps upon the ends of his words.

"I know, Philokrates," he agrees with him, bowing his torso slightly to concede, "but I would not have brought them here without the thought that you would be interested in what they have to say."

The old centaur scoffs, his front hooves shuffling in agitation. It is clear humans are not welcome visitors here; those scattered about nearest to the walls slowly unhook their bows from around their chest. "Den écho̱ kanéna endiaféron gia sas férnontas thi̱ría sta spítia mas!"

"Please_—_"

"Párte tous makriá!"

Others begin to advance, and Santana feels the spark of panic in Brittany's chest grow as she fumbles for the chain about her neck.

"I come bearing news of your son!" She yells, ripping it from her neck in a frantic tug. The skin breaks and blood blooms in a thin sliver, weeping just enough to fill the line. She doesn't wince but her fist is trembling from where it grips the chain, outstretched towards him.

Silence. Philokrates turns pale and watches her as if she is not from this world_—_a phantom that roams the chasms left behind. Between them the amulet winks in and out of the hazy light shed from the charms above, swinging as would a pendulum, and Santana almost falls into its dizzying rhythm.

"Where did you find that?" His voice is whisper-soft, refusing to waver; he takes small steps towards her and his hooves are as loud as the fjords in spring, shaking off the ice from the river to fall into their waters below. "Who gave it to you?"

"He did." She says nervously, glancing around at the countless eyes. Crowds are her weakness, her brain stumbles and gives the wrong words to her mouth. "Pantheras. I—it was his blood-oath."

Philokrates stops as if struck, but says nothing.

"We found him lying in the bush not to far from my town. He, uh, he w—was..." Brittany bites her tongue and rubs her palms anxiously on her linen breeches, resisting the urge to pat down the tingles resting beneath the base of her skull. Her shaky fingers do nothing to instil in her any confidence.

Santana silently winds her hand into Brittany's, the softness of her skin reassuring in the way nothing else can be. _Be strong. _Brittany notes the blonde centaur look at them with a new sort of intrigue, but she steadies herself and moves on.

"He was quite injured... well, no," she sighs, "to be perfectly honest, he was dying. Santana said the grass was drowning 'neath his body."

Stifled gasps from throughout the room, but still their leader stays silent.

"We found him too late. A troll had taken a terrible amount of interest in him that he could not seem to shake, and when we had finished with it he was departing for Valhalla. He stayed long enough to give me this," she motions to the necklace in hand, "and said that I was to tell you we had honoured him in death."

Beside her, Santana murmurs something soft, and moments later wisps of light float from her unburdened hand. It curls around itself in the air, before her movements tease it into flickering shapes that sway with the inhale of her breath. Brittany recognizes the bulk of the fallen centaur strewn beside their own; her hands move from memory and gently brush the matted hair from his eyes, later turning to accept his final gift before the scene collapses and the image fades from sight, once again nothing but a ghost of time past.

Beneath his mighty beard the old centaur looks aged. The lines upon his faces are deeper than before, carving chasms that speak a lifetime of worry as he stares into the air where a mere moment ago his sun had disappeared from the sky.

Brittany worries for him. Losing one so dear can tip such an old soul into despair, no matter the strength beforehand.

(Sometimes she remembers her Father's eyes becoming still and sad in her younger years whenever she smiled. He said she had a ghost within her.)

"What do you wish of us?" He asks without inflection. His eyes are unreadable and their depths aggravate Santana to no end.

"Your aid." Brittany responds. "An army comes, and we do not have the numbers to save this land."

Philokrates looks around at his people; leaving Greece has made them flourish, but they have long left the drums of war behind them. His final battle was in the death of his brother, and he swore since never to pick up a bow again. The same battle-lust has cost him a son.

"We are not a warring race like our kin to the south." For it is true—even those with weapons upon their backs look hesitant to use them, their fingers wrapping guiltily around their bows as a sinner would around the forbidden. "It speaks much of your strength that you have felled the unnatural being in these forests, and for that I thank you, but we cannot join you in this battle that has no whisper to do with us."

Brittany's face falls. "But, the amulet..."

"It does not guarantee you a service, mortal."

"He _promised_!"

(In Brittany's world, promises are the only thing binding people together.)

Hypotas steps forward, his warmth radiating from his thin hide. "Philokrates, be reasonable."

At this, the leader he is rises to the surface; Brittany takes a step back as his features harden and his voice takes on the edge of thunderbolts, through down from the mountain of their gods. "You will watch your tongue, _boy_, lest I ask you to speak. I have said no, and that is our final answer."

All rise, and he turns as Brittany's shoulders drop in defeat. How are they to defeat the army now? She knows there is the potential to change his mind, but her upset mires the words in her head, switches them about until no argument comes forth. Why is it that she can defy her kin, the man she is supposed to respect without boundaries, but this stranger brings from her nothing at all? The talisman is warm in her hand as if accusing her cowardice. She glances at their wicked-tipped arrows and swallows despite herself, stepping forward slightly. "I—"

But Santana has already moved, the cloak swirling angrily about her ankles the shadows of the endless void, her eyes narrowed and lips set into a snarl. She looks beautiful, like an animal hunted to frenzy.

"Does the life of your son mean so little to you?"

The hooves tapping upon the wood stop, and Philokrates slowly turns in disbelief. What is this mortal—no... not entirely mortal. He sees the blue presence within her pulsing so strongly it blinds, and the blackness gnawing away at whatever it finds.

His chest straightens, and the jewelry that speaks of ages past clinks indignantly with him.

"What did you say?"

But Santana does not concede—if anything the impending confrontation swells her conviction, planting her feet firmly upon the trodden ground. "I said, does he mean so little? Does his dying wish mean nothing?"

"His wish meant everything to me, and it is what got him killed!" He sounds like gods scorned: Zeus enraged by the betrayal of their ancestor, Samuel's Lord throwing great plagues upon the earth. "I will not have more of my people killed for such a foolish want! We escaped this centuries ago, and we have no intention of returning."

Something flashes in her eyes that Brittany doesn't like, and the smirk that twists her lips is bitterly unkind. "You would make a liar of your dead son?"

"You insolent—" Philokrates makes to reach for the golden scabbard by his waist, but the priestess is faster. With a sucking inhale another voice fills the room—one Brittany never managed to completely erase from memory.

"This was a gift from my father... the chieftain."

Her hand comes out and delicately winds the clutched chain around her fingers, allowing Brittany's disbelief to weaken her grip until she holds it pooled in the palm of her hand. The snake glimmers, and the embers from that morn burn so intensely in its eyes she swears it's a trick of the light. Whatever comes from Santana is not her own—her gaze has taken on a distant quality even as it appears glass-sharp.

Philokrates halts and lets the drawn sword hang loosely from his grasp. So many moons has it been since has has heard the blessed voice of his son! Some part of him rejoices in knowing that timbre once more, despite the pain he knows must come with it.

"If you see him... t-tell him that you have hon-oured my blood-oath and... show h-him this. He will aid you." She steps forward; once, twice, thrice. The guards shift nervously, but she shows no signs of harm, simply coming to stand before him. Her small hand, dwarfed against his own, circles his wrist to gently pool the charm into his open palm.

"I-I always... loved him." These must have been his final words, something only Santana was privy to hear. "H-he... he _has_ to know that."

"I do, Pantheras." Philokrates sighs out on a gust of air. "You were never void of my love."

Santana steps away with something resembling a kind smile, the razor in her smile dulled. He nods once to himself, appearing as a lost child for a moment.

"Settle yourself." He says absently, turning to leave. "I will speak with you... in due time." With the final parting click upon the wood, he is gone.

His departure allows Santana to inhale so deeply Brittany fears she will burst with it, blinking light back into herself before looking around with a bewildered expression. Gone is the cruelty that defined her mouth so sharply, and in its wake she appears hesitant, bringing one hand to cradle her head.

Brittany goes to take her hand but flinches unexpectedly. "Are you ill? Your fingers are freezing."

Santana frowns and touches them to her face. They feel warm against her cheek. "I think you the one ill, Brittany. I feel fine." She winces and touches her temple. "Maybe not."

A figure approaches them, and they look up in time to see the blonde centaur from before approach them. Her eyes are wary but her smile is kind, and she bends down to better match their height. "Excuse my father's temperament. He has fought for a long time to ensure this place is kept sacred."

An acrid response rises on Santana's tongue, but the sudden wash of nausea sweeps it away. "It is fine. Who are you?"

Her eyebrows raise at the brusque response. "My name is Cuinn, priestess."

Brittany studies her suspiciously. "Quinn?" She says, testing it on her tongue. It sticks in a way Santana's never did. It sounds delicate, much like the high, noble cheekbones the centaur possesses. "It sounds much too Britannic for it to be of any use to you."

"Cuinn, not..." At their blank expressions, she sighs and shakes her head. "My mother was of the isles, and that was how it came to be. It is claimed I once had a human in my lineage."

Both girls eye her bulk dubiously; the light hide that gives no illusion to what lurks underneath. Brittany has the sudden urge to run her hand across her pelt, but assumes that would be terribly presumptuous—the look Santana shoots her from the side agrees. From the sole exit the outside light darkens, whatever illumination creeping in through the trees fading away and falling short of the forest floor. They have begun to light peculiar torches, and they burn with blue flame. The only true light Brittany can see are the whites of Santana's eyes.

"Shall we get you settled?" Quinn suddenly asks, distracting them from silent conversation. She has a suspicion of them both, how they gravitate without visibly touching. Every brush of their skin is electricity crackling out into the open air, and they cannot fool the centaurs; they are much too versed in the ways of lust and love to be led astray. But the strange, animal instinct she sees in dark eyes holds her tongue, and she will remain with her thoughts until they allow it to bloom in the light.

She leads them back out into the pathways of her city with a gesture of her hand, taking a torch flickering from a nearby holder to lead the way. Sandalio, kept outside waiting, huffs delightedly at their re-appearance and makes a point to press himself against them as much as possible. (It has been a long time since he has seen his mistresses truly happy, and he does all he can to be the source of such joy.) As they move further away from the Mother-Tree they see hints of children_—_fragile, foal-like things that skittishly run about with high voices and fine hair, their spindly arms matching their narrow hips and protruding knees. Upon seeing them they stop and whisper with hushed voices, pointing until their parents scold them with embarrassed faces.

_It is strange to be the monster here._ Brittany remarks, but frowns as Santana groans and brings her hand up to her head again. "Santana, are you sure you feel well? You look pale."

"Fine," she mumbles, forcibly keeping her gaze ahead, "fine. Tired."

The tight lines around her mouth tell her lies, but Brittany does not comment. Santana will open when she feels the need. Instead she reaches to clasp their hands together, but is startled when Santana pulls away.

Santana feels the wounded look sent to her and frowns, running her fingers gently down Brittany's arm. "Not here." She says quietly, eyeing Quinn with distrust. "Not... not yet."

Brittany hears the silent _soon_ and it placates her enough that she continues on without comment.

They make their way into a dark husk of a strong oak with a long beard of moss trailing down over the entrance. His leaves float down to make a soft bed underneath their feet that crinkles as they enter into the trunk, night-eyes catching the barest glimpse of the insides.

"My apologies if it is not what you had anticipated, but we do not sleep on the ground as you do. Such a strange custom."

Santana glares the best she can from her place so far from Quinn's eyes. "We can get up and down, but if you fall, you stay there."

"We can also trample you with one movement of our hooves." Quinn hisses back, roughly anchoring the torch onto the wall. Its wavering glow casts shadows until a large mass of furs and blankets are seen on the floor, arranged into a soft pile. Sandalio has already curled into a little ball upon the top of the bed, but his hackles raise slightly at the venom in the centaur's tone.

Brittany's pack drops with a loud thump to break the tense atmosphere surrounding them. She leisurely stretches and ignores the stares on her now; instead, she grips the hem of her _gambeson_, stripping it from her torso in one swoop. The night air is cold and she shivers through her linen undershirt, plucking the strings from it, slow enough to feel Santana's warm-again hands covering her own.

(There is a jealousy in her eyes, a possessiveness, and it causes something burning to burst low in Brittany's belly.)

Quinn's gaze is wide and Brittany quirks an eyebrow, gesturing to her own attire. "You do not wear much either."

"Yes, but," Quinn stammers, her demeanour slipping as her face flushes red, "it does not mean that you..." At the last second before she turns away she catches Brittany's grin and rolls her eyes. "You both are impossible. I will see you next morn."

She leaves, and Santana's stare is incredulous for a few moments before Brittany's infectious smile catches on. "I have half a mind to punish you for such a stunt." She scolds, setting her own pack down upon the wall and unclasping her feathered cloak. It comes away in a flurry of disturbed air and its shadow in the darkness of the room is life-like, a mockery of a man. Santana shudders and crumples it into a small pile, laying it down near her staff.

"It worked, no?" Brittany's fingers are quick upon her belt, the leather coming apart in a soft whisper of sound, her breeches tugged down soon after. She throws them all in a discarded heap near Santana's own; her feet are silent upon the ground as she gently presses her weight into Santana's back. Together she can hear individual breaths whistle as Santana breathes in, her hands coming to rest upon the firm bones of her ribcage simply to feel closer to what gives her life.

Within her is the subtle tremor that takes her fingers at times—every so often a waft of rot invades the juniper that clings to her skin, whisked away before the mind truly identifies it. A gentle flash of red in the room, and Brittany can once again hear the blood pounding away in her veins.

"Let me help you." Her breath is hot and heavy against the fragile skin behind her ear, and Santana finds that she cannot say no when Brittany is so close to her. Not when the solid weight of her is firm against her back, her hands spidered over her bones to hold her together. She nods shakily after a silent moment—what seems an eternity when there are long fingers unlacing her collar, backs of knuckles brushing against her sharp collarbone and tracing thumbs against the hollow of her throat. Santana shivers helplessly, and obliges when caring hands smooth down to her hips and tug gently at the fabric, ridding herself of the gray garment and leaving her in nothing but her slip of silk.

Everything about Brittany is intoxicating, and Santana simply contents herself in leaning back against her. She knows things are changing. She feels it in every brush against each other, the quiet caress of their minds touching in the silence that their language brings. War brews upon the horizon, but so does something... kinder.

Brittany feels the exhaustion in them both after such a long journey. Still she remembers the parting of Samuel's flesh under her spear and the expression as he looked upon them for the last time. The scent of burning hair has yet to leave her nose. She fears it never will. Souls like those never end up where they truly belong, forced to wander invisible until the tide of Ragnarok comes and sweeps them away.

She was never truly allowed to mourn, too caught up in the expectations of her people to show her sorrow.

One of Santana's hands ghosts around until it touches her own, unconsciously tightened over her narrow hips. She knows little about the true ways of communication; she wants nothing more to tell Brittany that Samuel is with the Mother now—and he is, she _knows_, she saw him part on the smoke that the fire brought, but he is... distant. Her eternal realm wavers in and out of sight through a haze of mist, swirling around her feet and sneaking over her eyes. She blames it upon mental exhaustion, and turns until she can look upon Brittany. "Come, let us to bed."

She receives a nod, and when Brittany turns to extinguish the fire a hand snakes around her wrist.

"Leave... leave it on? Just a little while."

The nightmares aren't as insufferable in the presence of the light.

Brittany understands, as she always does, and simply tugs Santana down into the soft pelts.

They settle themselves amongst the furs, Sandalio's exhales warming their tired feet. Santana drags the pelt of a bear over them and its weight suffocates them in the best way — its claws touch cold against her arm and she shudders, drawing it around herself until it embraces her tightly. Brittany fills the spaces it has missed, and Santana gently undoes her ties until she can run her fingers through Brittany's thick hair. It is dirty and knotted, wild, but she enjoys it on her. It wraps around her fingers and brings her closer.

Brittany tentatively shuffles closer and drags her feet down the lengths of Santana's shins until they rest tangled below, one hand open as she plays with her palms and the other loosely slung over her waist. It pleases her to no end that when she dips down and kisses her, feather light, she only feels a slight clench of muscles before Santana relaxes and slides one of own legs over her thigh. Connecting this way with Santana is something she will never be able to do enough—for so long has she heard the whispering of boys she trains with and the girls she sits with, never part of either group. Only snippets would reach her ears, of marriages and consummation and lust... but never of affection. Never of _love._ These things are bonds of convenience, ties of power. Looking through their eyes, she had begun to lose hope.

Santana's fingers clench within her hair as she suckles her firm bottom lip, nipping with her teeth and bruising the flesh shiny and dark. Such a raw, wounded sound comes from her then—Brittany can't help the way it bursts something within her, hot and needy, pulsing through her like a second heartbeat. It anchors itself between her legs and her lungs and her eyes, feeding and consuming until all she wants is more.

More of what? She doesn't know. But as she gingerly swipes her tongue against Santana's mouth and tastes what is given to her, she knows she will find it eventually. (She was the first to tap into Santana's core, the first to find what was hidden. She will be the first to do all the things that lovers do, alone together.)

"Mm, Brittany..." Santana groans as she pulls away slightly to tame her booming heart. Brittany instead anchors herself to the soft skin underneath Santana's jaw, her tongue laving the sharp bone there until it has been undoubtedly taken as her own. Santana rakes her blunt nails down the taut length of Brittany's back, momentarily taken by the mouth finding the weaknesses of her. She wants more as she knows the other girl does—she feels it in every kiss, the leg slipped between her own—but everything is swirling past in a whirlwind of clumsy attraction that leaves her fingers weak as she tugs on a handful of Brittany's tresses. "Ngh, Britt, stop for a moment..."

She reluctantly parts with Santana's skin and her mouth make a sinful pop as it goes; in this light her eyes are as dark as summer storms, the pale pink of her lips almost red. They are lacquered with lust and the sight nearly breaks Santana's resolve.

"Do you wish me to stop?" Brittany asks, breathlessly, her eyes searching Santana's. For a moment she has a paralyzing fear that Santana is reconsidering whatever _this_ is between them, that the indecision in those eyes is greater than the attraction pulling them together. The longer she goes without speaking the more her fears grow, tanned hands wandering over the familiar curve of her lips and the high rise of her cheekbones.

Santana's mami had never restricted her much. She allowed her daughter to roam free upon the hills of Botaya and the streets of Jaca at a young age with the unshakable knowledge that she would always return before supper. In these explorations she learned much—though the boys of Botaya were thick and childish, those in Jaca were sly and mysterious, irritatingly alluring due to the fact that they weren't charming but still drew her in. She learned the lines of their mouths and how their hands held too tightly, how returning made them believe she held affection for them. They were simply curiosities in her life of continuously evolving wonders. There, in a city torn by differing religions, she was a kind of unspoken; they accepted her because her mami had done so much for them over the years, but she was a heathen child with vines in her hair and another voice in her breath.

She watched as fathers bound their daughters with men they did not know, sold off to the richest vendor. She watched as mothers groomed their sons into variations of one another, all with the smooth hair and charmed smile. She watched as only the poorest were able to marry for love.

"Santana?" Brittany asks timidly, her hands coming up and lacing themselves nervously between the holes of Santana's roaming fingers.

The fear in her voice brings Santana back, and she focuses on every thought that slides from Brittany's mind, like water in her palms. They run together but fit wrongly, the pieces jagged with uncertainty.

_What are we doing, Brittany? _Santana's presence in her head is unexpected but welcome all the same; she gives easily to the insistent presence and allows herself to be swept up in the completion their connection always brings.

Brittany bites her lip. _Does it truly matter?_ She asks in return. Access into Santana's mind is difficult, and some parts of her scrape as she burrows her way down, but in time she finds herself spread through until she is laid out once again for her to see—a pathway of starry souls. _I wish for you and you wish for me. The rest is merely detail._

If only it were that easy. _What of your duties? Your people?_

_My people never know what to think of me, Santana. I... I was never meant to marry. My father knows that, as does Grandfather. _

Santana draws in a quiet breath, but Brittany hushes her. "Do not worry for me."

A quiet chuckle. "I always will."

Brittany smiles, and it is brilliant in the dark. "I know, but sometimes it can be rather silly. You have nothing to fear."

Upon her travels, Santana has seen much. Through miracles and malice she has braved the sleet and storm that nature brings, witness to both the fury of nature and mankind. She has long realized that Mother Earth is much kinder to her children, for man will turn as quickly as he claims to follow. Sometimes she still thinks of those women burned at the stake for being anything except what society wanted them to be. Some are so capable of destroying which they do not believe.

The images filter in and Brittany curls herself around Santana until she is in everything that she breathes, willing her troubles away. "Ataecina came to me once, in a dream." She admits to distract her - it works in the way she feels Santana's head tilt, her breath hot under her chin. "She showed me your Iberia. I thought it was all full of sand and funny animals with humps on their backs, but there were hardly any in sight! I felt rather disappointed."

Santana furrows her brows in confusion. "Animals with humps?" Living in the north of Iberia, she only heard the stories of the south with their vast reaches of sand and scalding temperatures. She had ventured there once with her mami, but summer was in high heat and her little body couldn't take the strain. "A gamal?"

Brittany giggles. "What a strange name. _Camel._ Who names your creatures, San?"

"We do." Santana replies, amused. "Few camels where I live, only horses. The men to south ride camels when they go to war."

"She showed me your village!" Brittany exclaims, pressing their foreheads together so Botaya spreads out before them in a flash of fields and little houses, familiar faces roaming about the dirt streets. Santana sees the chaos the army has caused - some structures have been broken down and lay helpless on the ground, families displaced and living with their neighbours. Still, even though the count within their graveyard spirals higher, she sees the spark of life so inherent in them all that made her mami settle there at first when she was heavy with child. "She explained to me that just a little ways off, you were born there."

Ataecina's beloved words fill her mind until she is close to bursting. Now, in the shallow dark, she realizes how long it has been since she has truly heard her Mother speak to her. It brings a smile to her lips, though it is tempered with worry.

"I would much like to see it, if you would let me."

Santana locks eyes with her in surprise. "You... you would come visit with me?"

A grin. "Of course. I want to see everything your life has to offer, and everywhere you wish to go. After the war is done, I want to see the world with you."

"One day?" She asks, hardly daring to believe it.

"One day." Brittany confirms with a smile.

Santana leans in and places a soft kiss to her lips. Perhaps it is not enough to build their lives upon, not when they are so full of uncertainty and turmoil, but it is enough for now. She will live with the blessing of her Goddess close to her heart. and the affection Brittany so willingly gives wrapped around it. (For the first time in an age, she is _happy_ with life.)

She leans her chin on Brittany's strong shoulder, both arms going to her waist. Her eyes flutter closed after a few moments of blissful silence, the day catching up with her weary form, but a whisper breaks her reverie.

"May I ask you something?" Brittany asks quietly, staring at the smooth wood across from her. Santana nods against her neck and she plays nervously with her dark hair. "This eve, at the Mother-Tree. What... what was wrong?"

"Wrong?" There is no inflection that gives her voice away, but Brittany knows her curiosity has been taken once again.

The smile that Santana had bestowed upon him, fine and filled with barbs, still lingers in her memory. "Why were you so mean to him? He is only a grieving old man."

There is a pause against her. Mean? She wasn't truly mean... simply forceful. Perhaps she had taken it a step too far with the taunting, but something had come over her. They had walked this far and were _not_ to be denied because a foolish old centaur refused to hear them out. Too many would die because of his silence.

"I was being forward." Santana says simply. "He did not want to listen, so I made him. It worked, no?"

(There _was_ something, the pounding of her head and the bitter black. But it happens so often now that it was coincidence. Nothing more.)

"Perhaps..." Brittany trails off, hands running over Santana's covered back. "But could you be kinder? I want them to like us."

Only Brittany would ask this of her, a simple request that sounds like so little but means so much. Santana smiles and places a kiss on her temple. "I will try." She promises, and for that she feels Brittany settle fully against her, soon drifting off into exhausted sleep. Santana lays for a time, simply enjoying her warmth and their new-found footing, solid for once upon shaky ground. Her eyes begin to close.

A cruel gust of wind howls into the space and extinguishes the flame.

Santana flinches and attempts to navigate the endless dark with her blinded sight, her fingers digging into the thick knots of muscle in Brittany's back for comfort. She cinches her eyes shut when shapes begin to shift in the deeper gloom; the glint of claws and shine of teeth strong from where the shadow pools into something unnatural.

_**I will not be denied.**_

It is only when the moonlight falls through the tree and bathes them in silver blood does she drift off into troubled dreams.

* * *

><p><strong>September 16<strong>**th****, 912**

Sophias comes to Santana on the fourth day.

Restless in the city of trees, neither girl had heard anything from Philokrates. He remained in his home and refused to speak to anyone, his fingers running over and over the charm of his son until he had all but wiped away the intricate details embedded in the scales. Brittany tries the best she can to distract Santana, but this growing uneasiness inside of her leaves her unable to remain still for long. There is too much they could be doing, too many people they could be recruiting. Each day the army draws closer to them—she often feels a spike of burning heat from her necklace and a brief glimpse from the eyes of her mother at the forces that await them, but it is too often stolen away before she's able to make sense of it.

Those few who have not divorced themselves from their warrior heritage are all too interested in the viking daughter, how she is able to weave in and out of the air like blessed smoke. They steal her away for hours on end and watch her movements, slow and precise, turn into a dance of war.

Without Brittany's presence nearby, Santana feels cold. Empty. She attempts to distract herself with prayer and practice both, but her patience snaps before anything can come of it. Instead she glares motionless at the shadowed groves that become something else entirely in the corners of her eyes, dissolving before she can focus in on them. Styrr haunts her sometimes, distantly, but she ignores his persistent call in the depths of her head. The wall she puts up is thick, pulsing with life-energy, blocking her off from the world. This is how Sophias finds her.

It is such a gentle tap that she hardly notices it, scratching upon the edges of her submerged consciousness. She assumes it to be nothing more than Sandalio readjusting himself against her hip and keeps still, only startled into wakefulness when one solid blow shatters her carefully layered defences and rips her mind open for the world to see. She shouts, cradling her head in her palms, barely feeling the belated touch against her shoulder.

"Apologies, priestess," she hears over the din in her ears, "I forgot how fragile mortal barriers can be."

Over the days she will learn that Sophias is as old as almost anything that roams the earth, an elder back when Chiron was slain and they began their exodus north. In time she will grow to cherish the skin as thin as papyrus, and the voice of ancient oceans, but as it is she glares and flinches away from the hand laid upon her arm.

"What in the world were you trying to accomplish?" Santana growls, closing her eyes as her mind begins to knit itself back together. "That was _completely _unnecessary."

"Was it?" Comes the amused voice. "Am I to let you sit here with a shield full of holes?"

"It was not full of holes!" She replies hotly, rubbing at her temples.

_Are you alright? _Brittany's voice whispers through her head, and she smiles through her wince.

_Fine, Britt. Do not worry yourself._

When she opens her eyes again, she sees small hooves and white hide. Her gaze travels up to a smiling face and torso wreathed in flourishing vines, set up the body of a fine ageing mare. The braid, reminiscent of Brittany's, travels almost down to the floor.

"Do I know you?" Santana mutters, unwilling to admit defeat.

In return a hand is extended towards her, coaxing her up. "Not yet, but you will." After a reluctant thought she takes the proffered hand, noting briefly the weathered texture against her own, hauled up to her feet with a surprising amount of strength.

It's only after a few seconds of standing upright does she realize they're speaking Spanish.

Santana turns to her then, eyebrows raised. "You... you speak my language?"

Sophias smiles back. "Of course, young priestess. I speak all languages." By the pleasant tone of her voice, Santana is inclined to believe her. Everything about her screams wise—from the bracelets around her wrists to the knowing glint of her eyes, culminating with the thin circlet around her forehead. The jewel within it pulses with such familiar power that her fingers unconsciously go to her own mark, faded with time and travel.

"Walk with me." It's more of a demand than a request, but it's said with a kinder tone, so Santana warily follows alongside. (It reminds her of another time and another realm, and she sees hints of her past in the older woman.) Together they skirt past the city and slowly exit the grove, until the dappled sunlight beams down upon them both, strong and unbroken by the sky. It seems the land has yet to receive the true breath of winter—if she didn't know better, Santana would still think it early summer. She squints into the glare and fights past the headache such true light presents.

They stand on the mossy foot of a plunging valley, flanked on either side by two mountains that scrape the barriers of the ether. From their vantage point they can see the sparkling river where it feeds itself through the rocky crags, life blooming in its wake.

"This is what we had called paradise, when we arrived." Sophias says fondly, touching a small sapling. Her caress allows the roots to sink further into the ground—wherever she steps, her hooves leave flourishing grass. "It reminded us so much of home that Nikostratos, the old fool, decided to make our city here. It served us well for many years."

Santana touches the old trees and within them she feels the ancient influence of the centaurs. "Were you close to him?" She asks, finally relaxing under the older being's calm demeanour.

A smile. "Indeed," she reveals, "we were great friends. I knew him since he was but a tiny colt, and I was the one to raise him when his mother was slain in one of our many battles."

Turning, Santana's eyebrows raise high on her forehead. "You raised him?" She asked incredulously. "I know of his brother and his immortality, but surely the gods were not so generous as to bestow it upon you, too."

"I was older than Chiron, Santana." She says with a hint of amusement. "The gods are kind to those they deem honourable. You should know that."

She does. She also knows how cruel they can be.

"What is your name, mystic?" Santana asks curiously, her eyes tracking over the blue markings swirling underneath her wrinkled skin. She heard nothing of a female immortal in the tales Hypotas has told, bestowing upon them the legacy of their past. Her people have no legends from which they are eternal—in fact, they seem to fade into the threads of time.

"They called me Sophias," she says, advancing forward until they stand on the gentle flat of their hill. "The elder at the time saw what was to become of my future and bestowed upon me a name that would suit me to the end. It is our word for wisdom, something sacred. Our people's thirst for knowledge is... insatiable. At times it borders on dangerous."

She turns to her then, her eyes harder. "I know what comes, Santana. Philokrates is cunning, but he is also prideful and cautious; without coaxing he will not aid you."

"Then what am I to do?" Santana replies with furrowed brows. "He has made it clear that he holds no affection for me, and just marginally more for Brittany. We have nothing with which to convince him other than heralds of doom he is likely to ignore. Will he not listen to you?"

Sophias sighs and looks out into the valley with wistful eyes. "It has been many years since he has ridden to war, and his time at peace makes him complacent. I will try, but it is unlikely he will listen to an old crone."

"But you are immortal!" Santana objects. "Surely that counts for something?"

"The gods are immortal, but they, too, make mistakes. I do not have the answer for everything." She plays with a belt strung around her waist, various charms twinkling in the sunlight. "I had no way of curing Chiron from his pain, and some part of Philokrates resents me for it still. He tries to hide it, but I see it regardless."

Santana bares her teeth in familiar agitation, pacing next to her. "He will let his people die for this? Our people? (_My _people?)"

Sophias lays a hand on her shoulder, and even through her robe her skin is burning to Santana. "We will show him this threat, priestess, and we will bring victory to Nor Veg. I promise you this."

"But how? He will not listen to us."

"Then we will _make _him listen." Sophias insists, voice convicted. "I will teach you the finer points of war only a civilization denying their heritage can hide, and with this knowledge you will lead your army into battle—with your voice as their sword."

For a moment, Santana simply stares. "You... you would teach me _galdr_?"

"If that is what it takes," Sophias vows. Santana smiles, and it is the most sincere she has yet seen from the girl. "With it, Philokrates will listen." She grins mischievously, eyes twinkling with mirth. "Both to you _and_ your lover."

Everything goes cold and Santana gapes at her smirking face. "My... what are you talking about?"

"Your warrior, priestess." She says nonchalantly (something warms inside as Brittany is called _hers_), turning away when it seems she'll get no response. "It is not difficult to tell what kind of relationship the two of you possess. We centaurs know much about the heart and its fickle ways."

"Brittany and I... we are not..."

Something fights within her. Nights spent sprawled together in the bed of furs counts amongst some of the most content in her life, but the natural reaction overpowers her growing affection. Santana has always had a volatile sense of self-preservation, abandoning her when she truly needs it the most and rearing up when there is nothing to fear. It followed her and her sharp tongue from Iberia all throughout her childhood and even beyond.

However, she finds her arguments failing under Sophias' sudden unwavering stare. "Why would you think as such?" She demands, trying to replace panic with anger. "You would accuse me of such unnatural things?" Her palms are slick and she smooths them down upon her robe.

"Unnatural?" White eyebrows raise high. "Is that what you truly believe?"

Santana's jaw clenches nervously, her brow wet. "I, uh..."

Sophias sees the upset along the planes of her face and raises both her palms in submission. "I understand your hesitance," she soothes quietly. The centauress wonders what the people are like in Iberia, forcing their children into such hard shells. "You need not say anything. But know that you will find no judgement here, if it so happens to be. I see how she looks at you."

Santana's panicked stare softens. _This is how I promised her I would try?_ Perhaps she's not ready to announce out loud just let, free of shrouds and smoke, but it has long grown impossible to deny what binds them together.

Sophias turns away.

"She is everything," Santana murmurs from behind her, and where she can't see, Sophias smiles.

"Come along, priestess. No time like the present to start your training."

A moment later there's the churning of clumsy feet, and the distinct sense of leaving a dragging weight behind.

* * *

><p><strong>September 18<strong>**th****, 912**

"Try harder."

Her throat aches and her head pounds and every muscle in her body feels used and tossed aside like dirt, mouth dry and lips swollen. Her lungs swell again and the pressure within her chest burns, the foreign words wrapping wrong around her tongue and stumbling in execution. Santana scowls as the sapling before her barely wavers, its roots sighing once before going still again.

"Priestess—"

"No!" She snaps, crouching down to drink from the icy river waters. The mountain springs burn on the way down, but the cold brings a certain focus back to her mind, clearing the exhausted clouds. Santana passes one hand over her eyes, irritated and tired. "I am not meant for this."

Sophias frowns in sympathy, but her voice is firm. "It has been two dawns." She argues. "You cannot expect to know the secrets of our passion in two suns."

"I would have grasped the basics of it, at the slightest!" Santana throws her hands in the air angrily, wincing as her voice scrapes rough through her throat on the way out. "I make no progress no matter how hard I try, nor how long I try. Why does it not stay?" She glares at the little tree, its budding leaves too green and cheerful against her anger. She contemplates blowing it away in a roar of flame.

The subtle thud of hooves sound before Sophias places herself behind Santana—her muscles knot for a moment as two wizened hands fall upon her shoulders. "Try again." She commands, albeit kindly. "It can only come from practice."

She grits her teeth for a second before inhaling a calming breath, the air swirling uselessly in her lungs before forcing it again into song. It comes fluidly from her mouth but the _meaning_ is stilted, broken, worn ragged. Santana tries and tries until the leaves upon the sapling stir under her power, beginning to unfurl themselves in the light. They see the power of her voice wrap around it and coax it upwards—the roots groan like the old men they will become and begin to sink in, but her tongue stumbles on the syllables and the spell shatters. The tree droops again and all is still.

A wordless cry of frustration pushes itself from Santana and next she knows white flame is searing in the palms of her hands, crawling up to the tender crooks of her elbows and burning away the sleeves of her robe. Her eyes flash and the world fades from focus a moment—it consumes her until her existence feels nothing but fury and fire.

Two hands clamp firmly around her wrists, and it smothers itself without a sound.

The pain doesn't set in until a moment after, and she bites her lip to quell the whimper as Sophias releases her burnt flesh. It stings in a way she remembers only one thing ever did, when she was black and motionless at the bottom of the icy spring river.

_Santana! _There is panic in her head, not her own but so connected that she feels the animal primality behind it. _Where are you? Are you hurt? _

She blinks hazily. Sophias' face swims before her but she pulls her focus inwards, following the trail of Brittany's voice. _I... I feel... _

_What is it?_

_ I feel wrong, Britt. _Her hands flex sub-consciously even as a halo of peace settles about her. Brittany always brings out the calmness in her, the lingering stillness that must be hidden deep in the center of her being. A certain contentedness washes over her until every last vestige of the licking flame is burned away and she feels whole once again.

_Wrong? Do you need me, San? I can come as soon as you need._

_I... _(Yes. Always.) _No. No, I think it passed. Sophias will help if she can._

Even in her mind's eye she sees the displeased furrow of blonde brows, the worried pout to her pale lips. _Are you sure? I want to take care of you._

Santana smiles fondly. _I promise. I will see you at sundown, yes?_

_ Of course. Feel better, alright?_

Brittany fades from their connection until Santana is forced to focus back on Sophias, hovering with a concerned frown. Her hands move stiffly—free from the mental realm the force of her injury comes back to her. Sophias notes the tense set to her jaw.

"Shall we stop for today, priestess?" She asks kindly. She's long seen the growing frustration boiling in her, setting in and seeping down from failure after failure. It puzzles her why such magic comes to her so stilted—the Goddess is in everything she does, breathing nature into every breath she inhales. It should come quickly.

She contemplates it, surely, but even the pain in her arms drives her to be better. Her mami taught her through no small shedding of blood that tenacity must always be upheld lest the foundation crumble. "No," she sighs quietly, "let us try it once more." Her mentor looks at her inscrutably for a moment before nodding, once again taking up presence behind her. (If her hands hover closer to her wrists, neither of them mention it.)

"Think of what makes you feel happiest." Sophias advises gently. "The thing that lifts you up at your best, but comforts you at your worst."

Brittany is the first thing to come to mind.

Santana inhales and on the air is the spearmint of Brittany's breath, the musky tones of her sweat after training for hours upon end. She closes her eyes and the blue of oceans beam back from her mind's eye—every trace of her has been burned into her consciousness, and she can easily draw her to the surface. Memories of them together: in Kaupang, upon the road, swallowed by the forest. Even some of her alone—Brittany sleeping with a single ray of sunlight upon her face, Brittany striking out with her spear in an endless dance, Brittany laughing with her nose scrunching and her hand tight in her own. What comes to her, more than anything else, is the vision of Brittany last night in their bed of pelts. Her own eyes rake over her flushed cheeks, swollen lips, gaze dark as ocean storms. Her cornsilk hair spread about upon the dark skins like an angel's halo.

She doesn't realize she's singing until the root wraps itself around her ankle.

Her eyes open again and its girth is staggering, climbing ever higher until it touches the tallest of them all. The more Santana sings of lazy summer days and silent serenity, the higher it climbs—her language has no words, much like theirs lacks them. Instead it is in _feeling _that she finds the will to let her power finally burst free

When all falls quiet again there is a new oak in the grove, its massive branches swaying slowly with the whispering wind. A magnificent sight.

Even from behind, she can feel Sophias' grin stretching over her entire face.

"You did this!" Her voice is almost wondering. It makes Santana warm, to hear the pride inside of it. "It is your tree now, priestess." She laughs, brushing one hand over the tough bark. "Both yours and hers." It creaks its assent and a leaf brushes against Santana's stark cheekbone.

Birds chime their darkening songs and Sophias looks out into the mountains. "Night falls. We should return shortly."

Santana bites her lip. "I am going to stay here a little while longer, until I come to terms with the fact I... _created_ a tree."

A laugh. "Of course, take your time. But, ah," she looks at her red, blistered hands, "are you going to be well? Those must hurt."

She hides them behind her back, almost ashamed. "Worry not for me." She promises with a smile. "Some ointment and all will be well. I've treated many a burn in Botaya." Sophias gives a parting farewell and disappears into the bush, leaving Santana alone.

She waits until her steps fade away before setting off down the slope. Such actions should not occur in such a sacred place, she justifies, clumsily making her way down towards the heart of the river where the rocks jut out wet from the bed. Twice she almost falls without use of her hands, grimacing all the while.

Eventually her feet step down and she sets herself heavily upon the nearest stone, hissing as her raw skin rubs against her clothing and sends sparks of pain up her trembling arms. Already she feels the familiar trepidation seeping in as night crawls upon her, but she does not want to wait for them to heal—nor does she want Brittany to worry. With that in mind, she closes her eyes and searches for the darkness.

It comes easily, sliding across her mind like fathomless oil. The shadows that lurk nearby close upon her until she can nary see her reflection in the water's shivering surface; what appears is warped, twisted beyond recognition. Her eyes are black as the nether.

She blinks, and the image is gone.

**_I_**_** feel your desire, priestess**__,_ it whispers, and despite her resolution she shudders, wisps of it curling gently around the shell of her ear. _**What is it you want of me?**_

_I... _Santana's jaw clenches and she fights away the chill that has settled down into the banks, ice forming upon the edges of the water. _I wish for you to heal me. _

_**Yes? And what is it you will give me in return?**_

She scowls. _Stop with your games! We both know what you want, and what I have to give. _

_**Then so be it, and let your hands be whole again. **_

Santana unsheathes the knife from her belt with careful movements, rolling it gingerly between the digits of her left hand. The ruined remains of her charred sleeves brush against her biceps in the motion of phantom fingers. Without allowing herself to think, she brings it down over her palm and lets blood spill from the split flesh. She whimpers as it beads and pools in her palm.

"Come to me and heal,

And to you my blood I yield."

It manifests itself again, snakes of it curling like corrupted veins down the length of her arm to probe the wound curiously. She grits her teeth and watches with a morbid sense of fascination as the smoke that escapes from it worms itself into and under her skin, spreading out inside her flesh in a cold swath. This time it is smoother—poison rather than acid, and she only moans brokenly as it spreads upwards and outwards until it anchors itself in her skull.

_**Our joining was unavoidable. **_

Broken images flashes through her mind's eye of people dying and cities burning; mighty structures of glass and metal unlike anything she has ever seen crumbling under their own weight. People dressed in strange, colourful clothes wielding things that look like nonsense but hold the sound of shattering glaciers, falling in sprays of blood blooming like flowers from between their wide eyes. Children crying, castles being built only to be razed to the ground. Everywhere is the chaos of death and the sound hurts her ears, her hands clasping over them only to be halted by the dark crystal formed over her bleeding palms.

She tries to cry out but it is nothing more than a strangled sound, watching the rise and fall of civilizations. The weight of its antiquity smothers her, drags her under its acid waves. _What are you doing to me?_ Her mind tries to find Brittany, to beg her to return, but its frenzy immobilizes her voice.

_**This is our future.**_ It promises to her and all of a sudden it is _her_, she is the one doing the slaughtering and the starving and the falling. Santana's hands raise upon the hard grounds of this foreign world and their monuments tremble before splintering apart—those caught in her reaches scream for their god as they tumble down into the eternal reaches of death. _There is no God for you_! She hears herself scream to them. _There is __**only us!**_

Their terror drowns her and feeds her growing hunger, her desire for their lives snuffing out the hands of death. _**Do you not see? We are eternal.**_

But where is Brittany in this future? She searches endlessly for a flash of blue eyes and blonde hair but comes upon nothing. Endless faces pass her by but the only one she wants is not present within them, her absence already a bane upon her heart. _**There is no time for love in power, foolish girl.**_ It snarls, voice threatening.

A life without Brittany is not one she will ever want. (There is a glimpse of a pale body splayed out and drained, the red of it pooling until it permanently stains her skin. She screams.)

She staggers from her place and shuffles over to the roaring stream where she hunches over and retches violently, darkness spilling from her where it is whisked away by the current. The presence howls in her head as it rushes from her veins, dragged out by force of will alone, until its cries are one with the booming river. With delirium masking her intent she strikes her hands repeatedly upon the slippery rocks, black smears running from her skin with each blow, until the chrysalis cradling her hands cracks open and splinters. Santana yells hoarsely in triumph, barely noticing her flesh has healed anew.

_You will not have me. _She feels it dribble from her ears and her nose, running down the back of her throat until she coughs it up into the grasses where they wilt and melt away. It is still _there, _still _inside_ of her body, anchoring itself and refusing to let go. Desperate now, she shuffles over to the very edges of the riverbank where the knees of her robe soak through, planting one hand in the freezing stones and pushing her head underwater.

Where it was chaos above, it is a cacophony below. The swirling depths of the river is overpowering and she is nearly pulled along with the current; her mouth opens and she allows it to rush into her, forcefully rolling down her throat until she sputters and breathes in water. Even as it screams and she screams and nature screams, she remains underneath, determined to rid herself of its taint once and for all.

As the darkness of the deep closes in upon her, hands grasp her waist and yank her away.

Santana gasps and splutters as she meets air again, rolling over to cough lungfuls of water from her chest. The cold should sting but she hardly feels it through the bone-numbing weariness that has seized her—she feels water-logged and foolish, her responses sluggish even as she turns slightly and feels the familiar warmth of Brittany's skin.

"What are you _doing_?!" Brittany shrieks. Her face looks angry—flushed red, eyes darting—but the timbre of her voice is high and afraid, her hands roaming over every part of Santana to ensure her safety. She still feels the booming chaos clanging around in her own head, touching just the surfaces of Santana's mind to find her. "Do you have any idea— of how_—_ how I_—_" She breaks then, and her expression crumbles. "Gods Santana, I thought you were _dead_."

A wet, shaking hand comes up to lay itself upon Brittany's burning cheek. Santana seeks all the hints of life that were absent in her swirling thoughts, feeling the frenzied pound of her warrior heart underneath her skin. She surges then, pressing their lips together with a hungry desperation, whimpering when Brittany pulls back.

"I-I thought you were, too." She confesses quietly. "It... it showed me so much pain... I had_—_ had to_—_"

"Had to what, Santana?" Brittany asks patiently, reverently brushing a clinging strand of hair behind her ear.

"I had to make it go away." She confesses. "I thought I could stop it. T-take and not give."

Silently, Brittany helps her stand, slinging one of her small arms over her strong shoulders and letting her lean heavily on her staff with the other. "And did you?"

Santana grimaces when they begin their way up the hill once more. Washed clean from its taste she still feels it lingering in the back of her mind—an insistent ache that might never leave. Instead of heading towards the city she tugs Brittany further away, with only one direction in mind. "I think so." She coughs, spitting grey slime into the dirt. "Only time will tell."

(_**We are eternal.**_)

When they reach the oak, Brittany turns to look at her quizzically. She can't even offer the right amount of bashful. "Can we stay here a while? I wish to be alone with you." Brittany nods and sits herself against the trunk, legs splayed out. She pulls at Santana until she is comfortably nestled in her lap, arms wormed around her waist.

They don't say anything further, even when the water numbs Brittany's skin and ripples the hairs along her arms. Santana has long fallen into a deep, exhausted slumber, but she remains her eternal sentinel throughout the hours.

Shadows shift endlessly in the dark. Brittany finally understands why Santana no longer likes the night.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: **Long time no see, huh? I could give you the whole school-rant, but I'm sure you've seen that from enough authors to have had your fill. Another short chapter (well, short for us), but like its predecessor, it holds some pretty valuable weight to the story. Also yay adventure! Before I stop harassing you, huge thanks to my beta **LeMasquerade** as always, who endured me hunching like a polite vulture over her shoulder even as she was buried alive under course work. Hurrah for her!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 15<strong>

**but as the water filled my mouth**

**it couldn't wash the echoes out**

** September 29****th****, 912**

Dawn has settled in a soft mist about the city. The centaur are not a nocturnal race, and very few walk the pathways at such an early hour. Though the air is crisp, all are safely huddled away from the dew upon the grasses, their slumbering breath a backdrop to give this place a pulse all of its own, their hidden roots the lungs that give it the life with which it thrives.

Santana's breath is hot against Brittany's shoulder as she sleeps, her lashes fluttering against the hardness of her collarbone. She has sprawled herself over Brittany in the dead of night until she covers her entirely with her own weight; she is nearly nothing in comparison and Brittany hardly notices. Santana inevitably wakes first, always opening her eyes and rolling away, bashful of her body's subconscious need. Brittany will chase her, grumbling, until she presses against Santana's back and keeps her from moving until dawn has long since passed.

But this morning is different. There is a vague pressure against Brittany's fingers that brings with it a sharp sting; she goes to bat it away but it simply becomes more insistent. It is far too early to wake, and yet she does so anyway, dragging herself into the waking world and rolling her head to the side to view the cause of her discomfort. She frowns as she grasps at the pelts and comes up with a single black feather, glossy even in the gloom. When she looks up by her pillow, she's met with a pair of curious black eyes staring back down at her.

Her breath stutters for a moment as her other hand tightens over Santana's back. The raven is huge so close to her face, taking up nearly her whole vision; she can see the cracks in its beak and the swivel of its eyes. Its barrel chest sways ever so slightly when it breathes, feathers ruffling along the sprawling length of its wings. She cautiously raises her hand to touch it, but yelps in pain when it snaps at her and splits the tender skin of her fingertips. Blood seeps down her wrist and she frowns at it, managing to bring her fingers to her mouth to halt the flow.

It seems hardly concerned—in fact, it has already forgotten her, hopping closer. Its claws are sharp against her unprotected arm as it climbs over her body like nothing more than an inanimate obstacle, finally nestling itself between the curve of Santana's shoulder blades. From there it peers down at her, almost daring her to move.

Ravens have long been a contradicting symbol in her people's history. They are the worshipped birds of Odinn, but their consumption of carrion has turned them into omens of death. Wherever they roam they are assumed to bring both wisdom and disease in their wake.

"What do you want?" She hisses, careful not to wake Santana, still slumbering atop her. Her fingers run coppery blood down her throat.

The bird watches her with beady eyes—eventually its head swivels towards the lurking shadow of the room where another form is seen moving about in the darkness. Brittany instinctively reaches for her axe, placed to the side of their bed, but relaxes when she sees it is simply the raven's mate resting atop Santana's feathered cloak. Its bulk covers almost the entire crumpled garment.

Santana frowns and burrows deeper into Brittany's warmth, attempting to chase away the odd itch that has settled itself on her back. The raven croaks and hops away, fluttering until it rests upon a branch within the depths of the tree—the sound makes Santana's eyes open slightly.

"Was that you?" She mumbles sleepily, rolling away and to the side. She sniffs lightly and raises her head when she detects the scent of metal.

"Noh," Brittany says, her speech garbled with half of her own hand stuffed into her mouth, "it whaf 'em." Santana follows her pointing and peers into the darkness where nothing but an empty branch remains. Brittany frowns. "Ah' thwear dey were juth' dere."

Santana rubs her eyes and blearily looks at her companion, suckling awkwardly on her fingers. She can't help but smirk as Brittany looks back with a pale blush, rolling her eyes before glancing away from Santana. Her eyes naturally draw back when she feels weight settled atop her hips, and her other hand instinctively goes to the strong curve of Santana's thigh from where it is bracketed over her own navel.

"What have you done to yourself now?" Santana teases affectionately, tugging upon her wrist until she can view the damage. Brittany huffs and pinches her side.

"I get no thanks for protecting you?" She pouts, tilting her head slightly. From here Santana can see the red marks left by her mouth the previous night, nestled in the hollow of her jaw. It sets her body aflame until even the tips of her ears burn in remembrance.

She lowers herself down so her hands sink into the furs on either side of Brittany's head—she sees the flutter in her throat as she swallows heavily. "I believe thanks can be given..." she breathes, tipping her head so their lips brush, "for saving me from mean ghosts."

It takes her a moment, but Brittany rolls her eyes and snakes a hand over the back of her neck. "Stop being smart and kiss me."

Santana grants her wish—when can she ever resist Brittany?

It always surprises her how her heart pounds from her chest whenever they touch. Every caress of Brittany's sword-worn hands over her skin is a thunderbolt that causes her to seek deeper, harder, longer. There is still the trepidation within her whenever she gives herself like this, wanting and willing, but in the receding darkness of their room she can push her thoughts away to be dealt with another time; thinking has no place when she can so feel every muscle of the girl beneath her. The inside of Brittany mouth is so hot it scalds, yet soft like a petal unfurling into bloom. Brittany smiles into the kiss and hisses when Santana takes one of her lips gently between her teeth, tugging lightly before drawing away.

They hover even as Santana's breath fans hot over Brittany's face and she wordlessly searches oceanic eyes for something she doesn't yet know.

"Why did you stop?" Brittany murmurs lowly, her voice hoarse. It sends a chill straight down through Santana until the hairs upon her arms stand to attention.

"You taste of blood." She says, licking her lips slowly.

Brittany's nose scrunches. "Sorry. I tend to forget things when I touch you."

Santana blushes slightly and clears her throat, oblivious to Brittany's twinkling eyes from below. "Yes, well... let us see that hand, Britt."

_It is adorable how she cannot take a compliment with any form of grace,_ Brittany thinks with a smile, offering up her hand. The blood flow has slowed to a trickle, but the cut is deep, down to the fleshy tendons. The raven must have been mature to deliver such power. Santana clicks her tongue and turns the appendage over in her hands, her fingers brushing against the creases of the broken flesh.

"Only a skin wound, Santana. Stop fretting so." Brittany curls her fingers over Santana's own, but Santana sees the faint grimace such a movement presents. "Bandage me up with your strange smelling herbs and give it time, and I will be good as new. Like the aurochs that get gored for protecting their mate."

Santana's eyebrows raise. "An auroch pecked by a raven."

"When you put it that way, it seems a bit sad." Brittany pouts. "Just fix me?"

Santana rolls from her briefly to search in her medicine horn, unplugging the mouth and shaking out its contents. Her fingers comb through the contents, but she frowns as she holds up nothing but a single brown sprig. "I've no knitbone with me... I must have never gathered more after I used it on Gynna."

Brittany peers over her shoulder. "Oh. Well, use... that one?" She points to one laying in the dirt with bright yellow flowers.

Santana picks it up by the stem and twirls it in her fingers._ You wish to have your bowels forcibly expelled from your rear? _She asks silently. _I could make that a reality, though it would do nothing for your hand._ Brittany recoils with a shudder, unseeing of Santana's smile from the front. "You should leave the healing to the healers, Britt."

"You told me you loathed being a healer, San! Last I checked you said people make you want to pull out your own eyes with a pair of blacksmith tongs."

"They still do." She admits, turning slightly to face her. "But... I rather like being your healer."

"Is that so?" Brittany chuckles, winding her arms around Santana's midsection. Her large palms cover the sharp inclines of her hipbones, lips pressing hot to the juncture of her neck and shoulder. She feels the shudder run through Santana as clearly as if it had come from her own body. "Why is that?"

Santana tilts her head back slightly. "Brittany..." She whines, unwilling to look her in the eye. It is strange how Brittany can still bring out the bashful side of her she thought she had long since pushed away, even as she has touched places of her no other being ever has. Before Brittany can anchor herself to her back she worms away, once again pushing her onto her back. "Stop distracting me when I have a job to do."

From her position on the floor, Brittany peers back curiously. "If you use those yellow flowers, my body will be right mad with you."

Santana rolls her eyes. "I promise to stay away from the yellow flowers." She gathers Brittany's injured hand in her own. "Sophias taught me her ways, you know."

"Oh?" Brittany has only seen the old centauress once or twice, passing through the sheltered pathways as silently as a ghost. The vines wreathed over her torso let her blend into her surroundings until one can see naught but the shift of her white hide in the trees.

Santana hums her assent, pressing Brittany's palm over her sternum. "What kind of ways?" Brittany asks, bending her knees so Santana lowers slightly and nestles in the crook of her hips. "Magic ways?" A moment later there's a finger tapping her nose.

"Hush, you ruin my concentration." Santana says, attempting to sound irritated but coming out more fond than anything.

Brittany grins. "Not my fault you deem me irrefutable."

Santana pauses for a moment before frowning. "I think you mean irresistible."

"Possibly... hey!" Brittany brightens. "You caught that!"

"So I did." Santana smiles warmly, shifting. Perching upon Brittany for such a long time stirs strange things in her gut, absorbing the heat of the sun into a coil deep in her belly. It scares her—almost as much as it excites. "Now sit still else I give you another arm."

"Truly?" Brittany sits up a little bit in excitement, propping up on her elbows. "Can you do that? Would you? Just not on my forehead, it might be a bit unseemly to have a hand between my eyes. Perhaps by my hip, or on my chest—" She splutters as Santana stuffs the leather of her belt between her teeth, smothering any remaining sound from her. Above, she sees the laughter in Santana's eyes as she cradles her hand and fills the silence Brittany has left with a low, crooning melody that spreads from her in a slow swell.

Invisible fingers track over Brittany's skin until whole hands cover her wrists; she shivers as the air turns cold even as Santana's heat is warm over her. The words sound different than the snippets she's heard across the city, fractured. It can't be Spanish either, not with the way Santana's mouth curves around them and turns them with a foreign lilt. When she attempts to move her hand, she finds it trapped in a dark, crystalline substance. Her questions are stark in her eyes but she dares not interrupt.

Something else is in the room with them. Sandalio bristles as he glares into the shadowed curves of the space and her breath frosts with each pant. Yet Brittany is struck complacent by the awe of seeing Santana fully in her element, eyes strong and confident. Brittany lays there, arm immobilized, until the shadowy stone melts away and she's left with nothing but a small, black scar. She draws it to herself, turning her hand over carefully, touching the sewn flesh. "How did you do that?"

"_Galdr_ can do many different things." Santana reveals with a small smile. "Healing is one of them."

"It sounded nothing like their language, though. Was it your own?"

The other girl stands up from where she was balanced on Brittany's hips, offering out a hand to haul her to her feet. "You could say that." She finds her robe and pulls it hastily over her head, taking the belt given to her and wrapping it around her waist. Her herbs are shuffled back into the medicine horn, turning just as Brittany shrugs on the thick cloth _gambeson_ over top her undershirt. Santana helps her strap her axe back onto her long belt, shoving her skullcap into her pack.

"Quinn said that Philokrates will tell us his decision today." Brittany exclaims with excitement, quickly pulling on her boots. The city has settled to their presence, but they still create an undercurrent of tension whenever they pass through. Centuries of living with nothing but your own people must prompt a certain wariness that can only be broken with kindness.

"About time." Santana grumbles, clasping her cloak around her neck and upon her shoulders. "We lost more than a fortnight here." She pauses, bending down to pick up a fallen feather. "Has Sandalio been sleeping on my things again?"

Brittany glances over, eyebrows raising in triumph. "That was from the raven who bit me!" She comes close to shouting. "See? I told you I was speaking truth."

Santana twirls the massive feather in her fingers with pursed lips. "So it seems."

She scans the rest of the room but finds no others, and glances up at the patter of feet leaving the room. "Come on, San! She said there will be a feast!"

_Always thinking of food._ Santana reflects fondly, going after her. Before she exits the tree she looks around cautiously, bending over to scoop up a handful of leaves. The cough she'd been holding in for what seems a lifetime comes forth and spatters them with sticky black.

"I told you that I will not give in." She mutters angrily, wiping her mouth before disappearing after her companion.

* * *

><p>All eyes turn to them as an obscene moan floats over the dining hall—if she could, Santana would blush crimson. The perpetrator is too busy stuffing her face full of another delicacy to notice.<p>

"Is she well?" Quinn asks dubiously, eyeing how Brittany's face has started to turn an unhealthy shade of red. Her hands seem to grab anything within sight and stuff it into her mouth; skin shiny with grease, she currently cradles a large leg of what Santana believes to be auroch, undoubtedly meant for more than one person. It deters her none, and Sandalio happily licks at the scraps she lets fall from the bone.

"She does this." Santana sighs, sharply elbowing her companion in the ribs. Brittany seems to have an eternal weakness for food—it matters not what it is nor where it came from, she will eat it even if the taste isn't particularly pleasing. Not even _hakikarl_ is safe—and she fully believes it is the most repulsive thing she ever had the displeasure of being around. Seeing a dead shark buried underground only to be disinterred, dried and eaten months later does things to her stomach she'd rather not say, and the stench lingered in Brittany's clothes for weeks. It took three baths in the freezing waters of the fjord before Santana allowed her near again.

The ravenous sounds coming from the sole eating occupant still before stopping completely; Brittany peers over her massive meal at all the mildly horrified faces staring back.

"Oh, is there a ritual of some sort?" She asks, discreetly lowering the bone to the floor where a delighted tongue laps at her fingers until it is taken entirely from her hand. Brittany wipes her hands on the underside of her breeches and clears her throat. "Apologies. I, uh, enjoy food."

Seeing regular colour beginning to filter back into her guest's face, Quinn turns to the head of the massive table. What could be the whole _city_ (though Brittany assumes not all of them are here, they wouldn't fit in the tree) gathers around a giant, rectangular bench that overflows with exotic dishes in all varying smells and flavours. They had to build special chairs for the two wanderers as their height stopped them from being able to see over the lip—in fact, Brittany's feet happily swing in the air as she shifts in all different directions for her next conquest. She eyes a steaming pot of soup, almost reaching for it before Santana smacks her thigh and she retreats back with a muttered _ow_.

Philokrates emerges and nods at Quinn who bows as he passes, making his way to the head of the table. There is silence as he scans the crowd, eyes inevitably settling on his foreign guests for longer than the rest. Even if it has been only a fortnight he has undoubtedly aged a millennia (but who know what such profound years would look like on a centaur?). Grief hangs heavy on such majestic creatures.

"As you know, we have received word over the fate of my son."

His voice is grave as he sweeps his gaze over his people—beside them, Hypotas murmurs his translations.

"Pantheras was a kind being. Foolish, as any young stallion is, but he held the path of goodness somewhere in his heart, even if it was blinded by the ways of his ancestors and the thirst to reclaim such ancient practices. His want to see the world led to his death, and this is yet another way for the gods to proclaim mortals are not yet ready for our presence."

Something cold settles within Brittany. Does this mean they will be denied aid in such need?

"Tonight is not a night for mourning. Though his body has not been yet laid to rest, we take this night to honour his life in the _perideipnom _of the ages that will please him and his kin so that they may bless us with a next generation as prosperous as the last!"

The table erupts into cheers. Brittany, closest to Hypotas, leans over to whisper in his ear. (Even if she talks to his shoulder, he doesn't say anything.)

"A peri—what?" She enquires, brows drawn. Such a magnificent feast is usually for times of victory, but no battles have yet been won. She hopes Kaupang prepares itself for war.

"_Perideipnom_, warrior." He whispers back, taking a handful of meat as he goes. "It is a feast that the deceased hosts to thank his loyal relatives for taking such care of him after he had passed on."

Brittany's eyes track around the room, lingering at the empty head of the table. "How may a dead man be present at a feast?" She asks, puzzled. "Has he not gone to Valhalla or taken another body through Ataecina?"

"Our underworld is not the same as yours. These feasts summon him where he greets us for the last time before being ferried over the river Acheron by Charon to wander forever in the meadows of Hades. It is an empty existence, warrior. Be glad you will not go there when you die." She stares at the head of the table for what seems like an eternity, but nothing manifests.

Santana seems untroubled by whatever spectres must linger in this city, so she shrugs and goes back to her meal. Her stomach yearns for all the delights these people seem to offer—her hands close around the bunch of strange purple fruits she's seen many a centaur eat, popping them curiously into her mouth. Sugar blooms on her tongue and she quickly stuffs the rest of them into her mouth, juice dribbling down her chin.

Hypotas smirks at her puffy cheeks, and she vaguely hears a sigh from beside her. "What are these?" She asks, barely managing to hold in the mouthful before swallowing.

"Grapes." He informs her. "We brought branches of them from home and wove them into the earth until they could survive your brutal winters. In ancient times we made wine from it." At her questioning look, he elaborates. "A type of drink. We were infamous for it, as it made us into barbarians. Nikostratus forbade the making of it, and Philokrates agrees."

"Like mead?" She questions, taking a gulp of her own cup that holds nothing but water. She misses the burn it gives on cold nights.

Hypotas twists a chunk of leg from what appears to be a goose and brings it towards himself. "Somewhat, yes." He agrees, taking a large bite. The honey smeared upon it sticks to his lips. "A bit more refined."

He loses her attention as she delves further into the various platters presented, all of it being sucked deep into where he assumes an abyss awaits. Once she chokes and he goes to try and aid her, but notes the dark hand high up against her thigh and the smirk subtly playing against full lips as Brittany's eyes water helplessly. His own hand draws away, knowing the redness on her cheeks isn't simply from the burning heat of her meal.

When nothing remains but bones, Philokrates asks to speak with them. Brittany hastily wipes what grease she can from her hand and hops down from her chair, turning to aid Santana from hers before following the elder centaur who has left once again without a word. From the clicking of hooves behind them, they know Sophias follows.

They climb the spiralling platform until they breathe noisily in the silence that surrounds them, ducking in through the large doorway at the top. Philokrates awaits them; from this perch one can see the whole city splayed out before them in a wash of filtered green light and twinkling charms. Upon a nearby branch, two ravens croak.

He studies them for small eternities. In his hand he winds his son's pendant over and over in his fingers, the bloodstained metal cutting into his flesh only to be released a moment later. The action is almost hypnotic and Santana has to jab another elbow into Brittany's ribs to stop her from falling into the unintentional spell.

Finally, he sighs. "I apologize for being so harsh at our previous encounter." His voice is gravelly in the way when one hasn't used it for many suns, rough with disuse. One of his hands sweeps back his thick, white hair. "I am protective of my people, as you can so obviously tell. It is difficult for me to even think about putting them in harm's way."

Eagerly, Brittany leans forward. "You could keep them out of danger while helping us!" She's stayed up many a night with Santana, brushing over the different tactics that would appeal to both sides of the army. "If you were to simply disrupt their ships and supplies—"

"You jump to conclusions, warrior." Philokrates looks out the window, clenching the amulet in his palm. From between his fingers the eyes flash. "This is not to be taken lightly. It is possible they will discover us if we are to leave the forest."

This time, it is Santana who cuts him off. "And you expect to stay here forever?" She scoffs, her hand sweeping around the room. "You will be found eventually, centaur. Nor Veg will be explored."

His hooves snap on the ground as he turns to her, eyes narrowed. The gall of one so young! She knows _nothing_ compared to his ageless experience. "How do you know this, _skoúro énas_? Have you a link into the minds of men?"

Brittany and Santana both share a knowing glance. "Close enough."

Sophias approaches behind him; Santana has never once heard her voice like this, soothing and soft in a way that makes them all sway drowsily on their feet. "Come now, Philokrates," she coaxes until she can lay her hands on his arms, "be reasonable and listen to them. They may be young, but they have much to offer."

Philokrates waves his hand around, disgruntled. "Enough with your magic, Sophias. I will listen to them."

"He seems to go back on his word often enough." Santana grumbles under her breath, and Brittany gives a warning nudge to the girl beside her.

The older leader turns to them. "What would you want of us?" He will hear them out, listen to their plans on the chance they may prove themselves with a modicum of worth. His eyes stay resolutely fixed on Brittany's blue gaze, for the abyss hidden away inside her companion's dark stare sets his soul into vicious coils.

Brittany shifts on the spot, casting her eyes about. "They might have horses on their ships, and we move slower on foot. Our grounds are high and difficult for animals to climb, but their sheer size outweighs the advantages. My people are stubborn and would refuse to simply climb to the mountains and hide. However, such an army requires food... if you could raid their supplies, perhaps at moon-high, it would help. Morale is core to a force of such size and taking away a meal will hinder them."

_You make a good leader, Brittany._ Santana smiles at her, and Brittany beams in return.

_Truly?_ Her grin dims a little. _I've the impression that the remainder of the village thinks otherwise._

She hears a scoff in her head. _Then think them fools! They know nothing of you. _

The venom surprises her, and she turns enough to watch Santana's brows fall into a deep frown. Sometimes Brittany finds it strange that Santana cares more than her about what the others whisper behind her back (not that it doesn't, no, but one learns to grow a thick hide when the only other option is to crumble), but it causes everything in her to warm until the tips of her ears pink in delight.

_And you do? _She asks fondly, smiling again as Santana's eyes dart away hastily.

_I would... like to think so, yes._ Santana eventually relents with a nervous roll of her eyes, tightening her fingers around her staff. From here, the ruby shines to cast an almost malicious glow about her face; Brittany thinks her breathtaking.

Her littlest finger finds Santana's. _I would too. You certainly know my mouth better than any._

A sputter is heard from beside her and she feels the joint chagrin flow into her chest, but she manages to keep a straight face as she turns expectantly to Philokrates, who watches them with the utmost curiosity.

"Apologies, did you say something?" Brittany enquires innocently, raising both eyebrows and swinging her and Santana's conjoined hands.

He studies them for a moment longer, eyes flitting from Santana's staff to her dark cheeks, their grasp, then back, before shaking his head slightly.

"I asked where these supply ships would be." He responds, taking a few paces from Sophias who watches with a knowing smile.

At this, Brittany shrugs. "That is still unknown... they have yet to move from Taunmark, though their missionaries continue to parade around with their silly flags and heavy armour. I believe they refuse to grasp the idea that we are happy with who we are."

(But is _she?_)

The elder purses his lips and looks beyond. Within his hand the snake comes alive and uncoils itself in a flash of gold, winding slowly up his fingers and the strength of his arm until it comes to rest with a rattle upon his shoulder. He glances to the side silently at the jewelled caress to his bearded cheek. It watches him with its ruby eyes and he stares back until he must see something within them, for he exhales heavily and begins to nod.

"On one condition." He hastens to add, voice stern.

Brittany grins from ear to ear, bouncing on her feet. "Surely! Name what you would want!"

"You need to recruit more allies. I will not put my people in direct danger simply because you lack the power."

_He has points, and we have ways._ In her head Santana's voice is thick and satisfied, velvet in ways that makes her skin crawl pleasantly. _He will have his stipulations._

"Of course!" Brittany shrieks, jumping forward before she can stop herself and flinging her arms around the old centaur. He smells like the massive groves of his ancient home and tenses for a moment before relaxing to her insistent pressure, hesitantly but gently squeezing her arms in return as she disentangles herself to stand once again beside her companion.

A moment of comfortable silence reigns before her brow creases. "But how are we to find aid?"

Almost forgotten, Sophias smirks.

"I have a solution to that."

They all turn to her slowly as she makes her way to the far corner of the room where a lone table stands. Brittany has to pop up on her toes to fully see over the edge and Santana finds it impossible to do even that, instead awkwardly scrambling on the supports for a better view. Quinn, silent from where she has crept in, snickers at her troubles.

Sophias spreads out her hands—there is nothingness for a beat before a fine mist begins to accumulate over her palms, stretching the longer she holds it. Words are murmured under her breath as it thickens and deepens, twining in on itself until it runs across the table. From it, life blooms.

"This is Nor Veg." She reveals wisely, forming the tips of mighty mountains. "That, upon the edge, is Kaupang." They see little ships being cast from the fjords, a cluster of villages to form a town that seethes with little moving figurines. Brittany spies her house upon the hill, hidden by grass and trees. "And here..." she moves them upwards to where icy winds howl even in the heat of summer, "is _Finnmörk. _You will find great allies here, such as the sibling giants rumoured to bring about earthquakes with the stomp of their feet. Bond with them and no foreign sword can bite into their flesh."

Two shapes appear, what must be deafening steps silent from the overhead view. Their eyes glow in the dimness of the room.

"You want us to do _what_?!" Brittany screeches so loudly Santana fears a vein will pop under her skin. Sophias looks up from her magic-woven map with raised brows.

"Was I wrong in assuming such a journey would be no trouble for the two of you?"

"No, not _that._" Brittany stresses, her hands flailing as she points to the one section of the world Sophias has brought into great focus, every glittering stream a snake that winds through the towering mountains. "You want us to bring _jotnar_ to fight for us! The beings that will bring about the death of the gods?" She looks around at the array of blank faces before her and groans. "Does nobody see a problem with this?"

"These are frost-giants," Quinn says helpfully from the edge of the long table, having moved to the front some time ago, "they appear harmless, if rather large."

Santana rolls her eyes, eyeing the outline of the creatures that Sophias has conjured. They easily dwarf young trees—the troll they had met in their early journeys would not amount to half their size. Her fingers pass easily through their ghostly forms, vanishing into soft smoke. "Why would they help us?"

From his position at the head of the table, Philokrates shrugs. "Why not? They know of the dangers the invaders from across the sea present. They, like us, will not remain hidden forever."

How they haven't yet been discovered is a peculiar question, what with their bulk and breath of winter storms. She sees Brittany's clenched fingers from the corner of her eye and skims her hands over her own, teasing the tension from her touch.

_What is wrong?_

Brittany anxiously blows out a gust of air, tugging on the ends of her braid. _Too many things are happening at once. The jotnar are supposed to stay out of Midgard... what does it mean if they are here? _She turns nervously to Santana, bottom lip sucked between her teeth. _Is it the end-days?_

Part of her thinks it ridiculous to believe the appearance of a mythical beast as the cornerstone for the destruction of the world, but her whole existence has been built on the premise of rebirth and a cycle that will never cease.

_If it is, _Santana finally concedes, _I will try my best to stay by your side until the final sun._

It's not what she wants, what either of them want, but it's all she can offer. Brittany tries for a faint smile, and Santana doesn't pull away when she laces their fingers together.

"Where would we have to go?" Brittany asks quietly, voice subdued as she looks upon the sprawling map of forests hovering in the old mystic's right palm. Little villages dot the roadside, but none offer enough girth to be of any use to their cause.

Quinn steps forward and peers into the shadowy forests, contemplative. "Do you want to cross the mountains?"

Brittany considers it before shaking her head. "It would take us too long... too many bandits, too."

The centaur nods, tracing one finger in the swirling landscape. Wherever she touches lights up into a million stars. "Then you have to cross through Sviar." She reveals instead, curling a path out of Nor Veg and into unknown territory. Through this she avoids the imposing mountains and all their sheer glory, trekking instead through dirt pathways or sometimes pure bush to eventually surface at the frozen tip of the kingdom. "Perhaps they are of a different king, but they will unite with you. Your father's name carries weight."

"Once we reach our destination?" Santana asks, warily studying the frozen wastes. "Do we make a moon's journey simply for a couple of giants?"

"Not entirely." Philokrates says—Sophias pulls them forward into the crags of the mountains, their snowy steppes home to a wandering tribe of fur-covered people. Their faces all but obscured by the clothes they wear, they trudge through the sinking snow in hunt of game for their families. "These are the Sami. They see you as strangers—foreigners—but not as enemies. If you can convince them the armies are a threat, they could be of great help. No one knows these mountains better than they."

Santana frowns, looking closer. "I remember these people." She murmurs quietly, eyes skating over their reindeer knives and thick furs. "I saw them with Harald. They ally with the enemy."

"Luckily, that is not entirely true." Sophias interjects quickly. "There are two different types of Sami... the mountain tribes, and the coastal tribes. Those upon the coasts are more affected by the goings of Nor Veg and have decided to fight for Harald so that he will leave them in peace, but those that live in the cliffs and valleys have no such qualms."

"But..." Brittany hesitates, looking at the spectres of little children running about their mother's legs, "we will be turning a people against each other. Is that fair?"

"There is no time to be _fair_ in survival." Philokrates mutters gruffly, swiping his hand angrily through the image. It shatters and disperses into the air as a million twinkling lights. "If you have any hope of being a leader like your father, remember that. Advantages are everything... attempting to be kind will result in defeat. Kindness does not win wars."

_Ignore him._ Santana whispers quietly to her, but Brittany cannot rid herself of his words.

Does she truly wish to be like her father, when he finally passes to Valhalla and the task of carrying his legacy falls to her? Will she be the one committing warm strangers to death for a god that, as she's found, may not be the sole Father-God (what about a Mother-God that has done more good in moons than she's seen in years) roaming about the skies?Can _she_, phantom child of a slain shield-maiden, lead a people who scorn her faltering tongue and the body she was given by fate?

(What if she does not wish to rule? The world calls to her in a song that is loath to be ignored; war may be in her blood, but certainly not in her soul.)

"Kindness wins favour." Santana snaps in her defence. "How do we convince Sami to be our allies if we are cruel to them?"

They lock eyes for a moment and between them passes fire, but Sophias sets herself between her volatile protege and impatient ruler. "We have no time for this." She hisses scornfully. "They must set out as quickly as possible before the snow begins to fall."

Philokrates nods his consent. "They will set out tomorrow at first light, just after dawn. I will get the craftsmen to see to their provisions. Sophias, can you teach the girl how to create the map?"

"Certainly. It would do them no good to get lost before leaving the city."

"I will guide them out." Quinn says hastily, stepping forward. "We can move faster."

Her father frowns. "You most certainly will not, child." Who knows what awaits past their well-defined boundaries?

"Sending them out without help will cause nothing but problems." She argues calmly, crossing her arms over her swooping jerkin. "We want this to run as smoothly as possible."

Santana and Brittany both watch the old leader clench his teeth, the muscles jumping angrily in his jaw. For once Santana stays silent, content instead to watch the outcome.

"You are my daughter, not a scout. You will do what I say."

"On penalty of what?" Her voice has turned cold, hazel eyes narrowing. "I can make my own decisions without a male presence. Just because I refuse to marry does not make me any less competent."

Brittany feels sympathy for her, remembering one too many complications with her father. Despite their rough standings, she misses him greatly.

Philokrates bares his teeth; his hand slams down on the great table and a fracture forms in his wake. "Your brother wanted the same thing, and what is he now? A body rotting alone in the ground!"

"Pantheras stood for what he wanted, and it would be disgracing his memory if I did not do the same! We are _done_ with the old ways, father! We have lived in Nor Veg for hundreds of years, and I know I am not the only one who feels the winds of change. We must adapt into a _better_ people if we are to survive." Quinn runs her hands angrily through her short hair, turning to leave.

"I will meet the both of you at first light tomorrow." She says quietly, making only brief eye contact with Brittany before descending the long, winding ramp back down to the center of the tree.

The silence is deafening as she leaves, and Brittany hesitantly tries to repair the damage. "Philo—" But his hand raises, his face suddenly tired.

"It would be best if you leave." He says solemnly, refusing to meet their gaze. "You have done enough."

Santana bristles from beside her, but Brittany nods and quietly tugs her from the room. In the days they've spent here Santana's grasp on her language has seemed to accelerate at a bizarre rate, and Brittany no longer trusts that her lack of experience will hold the acidic thoughts in her head. (She's seen a growing anger in her, swelling, choking her with its size. She fears that Santana will be swept under the tide the longer she lets it grow.)

They wind through the shrouded pathways silently, the steps of their feet muffled by falling leaves. Autumn comes, and with it the trees take on the old bones of their own skeletons once again, shedding themselves to bloom anew once they can shake the snow from their branches. The pines are lonely green giants amongst the bursting colours, singing a mournful song to the gusts that murmur through their dry needles.

As soon as they duck into their hollow, Santana wrenches her hand from Brittany's grasp. "Santana, please—"

"Why do you let him do that?" She snarls angrily, clenching her fists by her side. Still her mind is swollen with images of his face, the disappointment that seems to follow her always. "Why do you let him walk all over you?"

"It was a family affair." Brittany says calmly, unwilling to rise to Santana's tone. "We had no reason to intervene."

"Not just that!" She's baffled with how quickly her companion's presence sways, unwavering one moment and meek the next—almost as if two different spirits live within her. Where is the Brittany that refuses to back down to her own father, jarl of Kaupang? Where is the warrior? "Before, and even when we first met them! You submit to him without a word like... like he is _better_ than you. Is that what you think?"

She knows Santana is being unreasonable. She _does._ She sees it in the wideness of her eyes and the trickle of sweat that runs down her temple. But it doesn't stop the twinge of irritation in her chest, nor does it quell the beginning of a pounding headache as she feels the whirlwind of her thoughts crash into the barriers of her mind. "I am trying to be _likeable._" She hisses back, wary of the people that may still mill about. "If we are mean to them, what do we have? An unwilling ally with no means of aid."

Santana scoffs, offended. "I can be likeable."

Here, Brittany rolls her eyes. If it wasn't so tense, she'd note the action seems strangely like something Santana would do. "Are you sure? The first time you met him you called him a coward and used his dead son as guilt."

"And it worked, no? We would have been turned away if you kept on like that. The dead stop meddling with the affairs of mortals when they pass."

"Hypotas would have stopped it." Brittany sighs tiredly, beginning to unbuckle her belt. Arguing takes so much out of her, but it seems that whatever has been hounding Santana for the past moons refuses to settle down. She reminds her of a coiled snake, tense and ready to strike. (What happened to paying tribute to the dead?)

"See?" Santana exclaims, beginning her eternal pacing. "You are too trusting of people, Brittany! These things are strangers, not friends. They will turn on you if you show them kindness."

Brittany pauses in unlacing her shirt. "That was how we met." She finally manages to lock eyes with Santana, frowning. "Are you saying I made a mistake in trusting you?"

Santana's face softens slightly. "No, of course not." She would never take back wandering into that forsaken town, not when it's delivered such richness to her. Brittany carefully takes her hands, turning them palms-up to where she can trace the thick, black rings where the flesh has been healed anew. "Then come to bed." She says quietly, her thumbs smoothing the thick skin. "We can talk about this when we both have lighter heads."

Brittany guides Santana down into the pelts, gently removing her robe as she goes. She runs her fingers under Santana's eyes, searching for the pupils that have been almost utterly swallowed by the darkness underneath. "You can be so angry sometimes." She murmurs to her, winding black tresses in her hands. "It scares me."

Her companion looks away with guilt, sucking her lower lip into her mouth. Sometimes she forgets that Brittany has insight into her that nobody else does—not even Ataecina, who she can hardly hear anymore. Her brain is filled with the white noise of their troubles, followed always by the obscuring buzz of the darkness until anything else is drowned out and destroyed. (She hasn't told Brittany that her rune, once safe by her hip, came out of her pocket in a black, gooey mess that clung to her fingers and corrupted the meaning. She buried it under a birch tree to leech the darkness from the stone, but its taint lingered on her hands and brought with it the whisper of a hundred voices.)

"I just want things to be easy for once." Santana says softly, curling into a little ball. "And I want to be the one that eases the journey for us. Is that too much to ask?"

Brittany shrugs slightly, settling down under the thick fur. "Sometimes things are hard, and that is all they can be. You have to take it and move on." She pulls on it until all but her eyes and halo of light hair disappear under the shoulder of brother-bear. "Things will sort themselves out eventually."

Santana frowns. "How do you know?"

She smiles a secretive smile, her blue eyes twinkling with the bathing light of the moon. "Because I've you, and you've me. You like to make things hard, you know." Brittany doesn't see anything more profound in the harder things, only more tiring.

Pausing, Santana studies her for a moment before nodding slowly. "I can believe that."

The moon floats behind a stretching branch yet to lose its leaves, and they are shrouded in darkness. Though the silence claims their wakefulness, it is the first time in moons they've slept without touching.

* * *

><p><em>Your abyss is interrupted by a presence.<em>

_ You feel it slide along your arm and curl in the soft cup of your palm, wrapping itself and its endless embrace over the tender crook of your elbow and the protrusion of your shoulder. Its skin is fleshy and oozes dark matter, instinct causing you to flinch away before its mind fully touches yours, instilling a sense of passive want to counter what should be unnatural. Something cold and wet strokes your cheek before draping itself behind your slender neck. It smells like bitter bile and brings a strange sense of sensitivity to your exposed skin. But... you still wear your robe. How?_

_ **Do not think.** It whispers quietly and you allow yourself to relax again, the confusion falling away. Wind now touches your free arm where it has not yet covered, crawling up your body as it howls around you in a dark gale; it must be night for it to be so dark. You see nothing ahead of you but echoing blackness, as reaching as the universe you used to know. You walk but nothing touches your feet—each step brings you nowhere but propels you forward until you see the shadows of trees rushing past with swiftness never seen. Everything in your head is shrouded with a thick fog—all you know is the weight around your shoulders and the voice murmuring in your ear, driving you on without a goal. _

_ There is a tugging in the center of your chest. Something pulls you from within, but its touch severs the ache—the taste in your mouth is comforting, embedding strength in your shadowy muscles. Nothing is greater than whatever has wrapped itself around you, nothing more important. You are its willing vessel and in return reap the rewards such an infinite being can give. It guides you to a small copse of trees, and through its stench you can smell the rich pull of the earth. (It reminds you of something, but the thought is soon cast away.) _

_**Why are we here?**_ _You ask, but your voice is dreamlike, echoing in your own head. It does not __answer but instead urges you onwards with a growing sense of excitement, its ancient body shifting and coiling against your skin. You are utterly silent as you ghost through the brush; branches pass through your body like mist descending from the skies in early morning, undisturbed in your wake. A puddle of rainwater lays upon the ground and you catch the barest glimpse of two pinpricks of eerie light in the darkness before the image disperses and you are left adrift once again. There is a crest that you reach upon a small hill—you halt as if struck and stare down at the tiny little houses with smoke pouring from their rickety chimneys. _

_ Whatever you search for is here—you feel their fragile dreams on your tongue and ache to shatter them, to touch and splinter until nothing but a mockery remains. Such nubile things have no place in this world. **Soon, girl.** It soothes your growing anxiety with a soft whisper of sound, skating alongside your jaw. **There is something you must do for me.**_

_It guides you down the hill; time warps and suddenly you stand on the streets and your breathing is deafening to your ears, laboured as its weight begins to press down upon you. You are bound; through your body filters the ebb and flow of eternities, giving palpable form to what was once nothing but primordial smoke. Distantly, you feel the thing curled around your body rejoicing at tasting matter for the first time. __Though their fires offer feeble light, nothing evades the shadow... __there is something you are missing. A light, a body with snow for skin and oceans for eyes. The thought haunts the deep recesses of your memory that has not been overtaken by the thick, paralysing sludge it has cast upon you, taunting you with fractured pieces of disquiet. _

_ Nothing of your past life comes to you, save for that one thing—one person—and you let it sit to take root. _

_ Slime nudges your free hand and you look down in time to see a figure perched by your feet. It looks almost as a small human would, stripped of skin to walk around in nothing but blackened flesh. Your hand rests upon its head—a skull, devoid of anything save for that layer of crisp, weeping muscle—and it awaits patiently for a command. The rasping breath pulled from its mouth is jagged through rows of broken, pointed teeth. From inside voided sockets, two eyes glow. _

_ It looks to you with a fondness, an affection strange in a thing so monstrous. You are its guidance and keeper through the darkness of this world, shielding it from the light that would pain it so. Unbidden, your lips curl into a fragile, confused smile. _

_ The creature leads you through the sleeping town in an awkward limping gait, using its spindly arms to skitter along the ground. Its claws create deep grooves in the earth. _

_ A heartbeat raises higher than the rest, screaming to your sensitive ears. There is a boy in the shadow of two houses—you call and the darkness bends to you, exposing him and his useless body. A flicker of unease runs through the thing attached to your arm. Dispose of him.__Its voice flows through your mouth and the creature (your servant?) cackles as it scuttles towards him, mouth devouring the shrill scream as those massive fangs find purchase in his tender throat. You move as the sound of a feast fills the air. _

_ Your feet rest upon the hallowed grounds of the village's small cemetery. It is a strange mix of wooden crosses and burial mounds to mark the passing of ancestors, two religions clashing to morph into one. You pass effortlessly over the undisturbed graves, feeling the bones of the deceased under the ground as they slumber on, their souls long departed for the afterlife. They will be of no use. It takes you to the edge by the forest, where the dirt is new and freshly turned. _

_ Here. It commands you to kneel and you do, your hands ghosting along the raised mound of the grave. A body rests here, no more than a few suns dead. Perfect. You lay your palms upon the dirt and for the first time you notice you have no colour to your skin other than the darkness that takes everything you touch, all features absorbed by the abyss that swirls. It fascinates you endlessly, but the tug in your mind shifts your thoughts to greater things. The heaviness along your shoulders uncoils and slithers down your right arm until it touches the very earth you do, its tendrils stroking the grave almost fondly. _

_ **Come to me.** You hear yourself whisper with your stolen tongue. **It is not yet time to sleep.** Your fingers sink themselves into the ground until you feel the very first hint of his rotting flesh, cold and clammy underground. **Come serve your master.** _

_ Nothing moves for endless minutes but eventually something twitches, the dirt shifting slightly in an undulating wave. Showers of earth fall as you become aware of another moving thing besides yourself, a grey hand tunnelling through until it pulls free into the open air. A body follows, clothes filthy and skin fallow until the thing bursts from its grave with a hunger for the life it had been so unfairly denied. He sits silently, little streams of dirt coming from his hair as a dribble of thick spittle falls from his mouth._

_ The hunched little creature from before returns, dragging a broken corpse behind it. It heaves and rattles until it manages to throw the massacred boy at your feet - it coos in delight as your hand distractedly rub its charred scalp in thanks. Whatever newly formed hell in front of you turns to the scent of fresh blood - one heavy hand reaches, clumsily dragging forward the body until it can bring the new flesh to his hungering mouth._

_ The sound of bone splintering apart forms your lips into a smile, and the backs of your fingers stroke his limp cheek. **Welcome back to the world, my beautiful draugr.**_

* * *

><p>Brittany wakes at darkest night to warmth over her fingers. She frowns, stirring quietly, pulling away to tuck her limb underneath herself and try to fall back into strange dreams. It's so cold she thinks her skin has frozen solid, and shudders when something wet prods her palm.<p>

"Wha..." She cracks one eye open and squeezes it shut immediately when a hot tongue swipes over her face anxiously, followed by a snuffling nose under her chin. Sandalio whimpers with both front paws on the bed; in the dark, she can see the outline of his small ears pinned back over his scalp. Thinking it to be nothing, she attempts to roll back around only to yelp in pain when his sharp teeth find the hinge of her jaw.

Brittany scowls and kicks the pelt from her, fumbling any source of light. "What is your problem?" She snarls groggily, staggering to her feet and reaching outside their room for the lantern set upon the side. Her fingers find the hollow horn, flame making long arcs in the air as she brings it back to bed. Sandalio watches her cautiously, tail tucked between his legs and sharp eyes unusually worried. Brittany frowns at him and places the torch upon the holder above their heads, crawling back in with a sigh.

"Go take care of your dog, Santana." She grumbles, shifting back under the pelts. Why is it so cold? "He keeps me awake at night." No response. Brittany rolls over and nudges her still body with her foot, ever aware of the intelligent gaze on her back. "Santana, wake up." Still nothing. Curious now, Brittany props herself on her elbows and peels back the coverings. "Santana?"

Sandalio, circled now to the other side of the bed, flinches and whimpers as his mistress' limp hand falls from the bed and touches his nose. She smells of death and rotting earth, nothing like the warm blood that so often pounds through her veins. He watches as her companion's eyes widen until the whites of her eyes are showing, scrambling to her knees and cupping her pale face in her palms. Her breath, heavy enough now for them both, fills the room.

Brittany hastily crawls up next to her, fingers desperately skating over every inch of skin she can reach. Santana's body is so cold she feels ice formed in a slippery layer over her right side—frost clings to her lashes and rims her open eyes. Laying on her back, she stares sightlessly at the ceiling. Her chest doesn't move.

"Oh gods, Santana, _no_," Brittany whispers, pulling herself over her companion's body until she rests just over her hips, "don't you dare do this to me, not now." She searches for any remnants of the girl inside this body that looks like a stranger, but those haunting eyes remain unmoving. From this angle, she can see the dark that lingers so often at the center of her gaze has spread out and streamed in all directions until no colour has been left at all. Brittany touches her caramel skin and swallows down a sob. "I told you that you have to be stuck with me now." She chokes out, lowering herself down until she hovers just over Santana's face, her hot breath ghosting through her lips and warming her frozen throat. "You have to come back to me, okay? I know you can."

Her head drops to her sternum as she desperately searches through her own frenzied thoughts for a hint of the girl she's come to love.

Love?

_No time to think about that._ She shakes her head furiously and holds her breath instead as she seeks wherever Santana has gone, assaulted at once by that familiar stench that seems to linger in the exhaling pant of Santana's breath and the hollows of her ears. It seethes about the room—how she didn't notice it before baffles her, but she grits her teeth as those unnatural shadows yearn to extinguish the sole lantern in the space.

_Where are you, Santana?_ The ruby burns in the dark as Brittany sails through the recesses of her broken mind, clawing through the night as she finally finds the trail she has left behind. No matter where she goes, Brittany will find her.

Almost as if coaxing a scared animal from hiding she teases the threads of Santana's consciousness back to her until it can be wrapped around her fingers, pulling gently back to their bed. It comes willingly, listlessly, exhausted by such a long journey. She feels a different presence about her—lighter, calmer—that banishes the shadow just as Santana's chest expands and she pulls in a sucking, heaving breath.

Brittany whimpers in relief as the corruption in her eyes drains away as black tears running down the sides of her temples; she looks up hazily, shivering violently as her blood warms once again and the ice begins to melt. Sandalio laps frantically at her fingers, his hot tongue bringing feeling back to her skin.

"Britt..." she mumbles groggily, eyes rolling around in confusion, "what..." Her speech is cut off by desperate lips against her own, and she tries her best to reciprocate the kiss through the weariness that has embedded itself into her bones. Santana frowns at the tears she can see shining in Brittany's eyes, reaching up with one hand to brush them away. "What happened?" Brittany takes her cold palm and presses it firmly to her cheek, leaning into the shaky touch.

"You forget?" She asks quietly, almost as if it would break the palpable relief in the room. Her fingers smooth away the rivulets of slime still caught in Santana's eyelashes, creating black marks on her pristine skin. It has warmed with the returning heat of her body.

Santana looks off to the side in thought. Nothing but a void in place of her dreams. Strange... she almost never forgets where her sleep takes her: such are the qualms of being a priestess. "Everything." She reveals with a frown, relaxing again into the furs. Now awake—she remembers being caught up in something deep and dark, ensnaring her and dragging her under—with nothing but the dim lantern to reveal her surroundings, she sees the dark circles under Brittany's eyes and the shakiness of her breath. There is a distinct feeling she's missing something vital. "How long have you been awake?"

"Long enough to nearly have started calling for Sophias." At Santana's confused look, she elaborates. "Sandalio bit me and I woke up—" her hands catch Santana's face in time to stop her from rolling to the side to scold the dog, "no, San, listen to me. He woke me up because you stopped _breathing _and something was obviously wrong. A—and I waited, and waited, but you refused to wake up. Why do you always have to be so stubborn with everything?" She attempts a smile but it's forced, and they both know it.

Santana reaches up and Brittany comes willingly, rolling them until they're both facing each other on their sides. She presses herself up against the taller girl, all memories of their earlier argument forgotten. "I have no idea what happened, but thank you for saving me." She murmurs, brushing her nose against Brittany's. "I felt you. That is all I remember... so really, it was a good dream for me." She smirks, but her companion doesn't look amused. Her arms wind tighter around Brittany's waist as she sighs, resting their foreheads together. "What is it?"

Brittany bites her lip hesitantly. "Your magic is making you sick," she complains softly, lacing their fingers together. "Why do you still do it if it hurts you?"

Santana blinks in thought, discouraged by the fact that there is no reasonable answer. She could blame it on her impatience for nature to run its course or her constant crave for knowledge, but it goes further than that. Further than this war and these people and this country. But she doesn't know how.

"I need to be strong to help you." Santana finally settles on an answer, though it eclipses the whole truth. "I cannot be strong if I have nothing to use. You have your spears and your swords... what do I have? Nothing except a power that sometimes decides not to work. I need _better_ than that." If she burns her hands to nothing every time, her aid will be short-lived. What is a little regeneration if it can help win a war?

Brittany frowns, dragging the bear pelt over them so it shields them from the world. Neither of them scold when Sandalio worms his way between their legs, his heavy head a comfort against her thigh. Brittany must remember to give him extra hugs in thanks. (Sometimes, that dog is too smart for his own good.) "But you are already so strong, do you really need to hurt yourself to get better?" She asks rhetorically, snuggling deeper into Santana's once again scorching warmth. "What about that blue magic? It was so pretty."

She feels Santana's muscles tense for a split second, her fingers playing distracting patterns over her spine.

"It... does not come as easily anymore."

(Truthfully, it does not come at all.)


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Well, here it is. Chapter 16. It's taken a bit longer to get out because I've had to come to terms with the fact that, wow, I didn't even realize Glee was on last week. Am I cured? We just don't know. But don't worry - no matter how unmotivated I feel at times, this story will be finished (eventually) if it's the last thing I do. Great thanks to **LeMasquerade,** who listened to my frantic ramblings though I'm certain she had better things to do at any given time (university, it's all very serious) and got this done with record speed. Also, my extra kudos of the day goes to **Swinging Cloud**, who I turned to for my writing inadequacies when I felt LeMas would beat me with a chair if I tried again. Now... enjoy!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 16<strong>

**though you may not remember dreaming**

**something waits for you to breathe again**

** September 30****th****, 912**

They wake just before first light like Quinn had asked of them. The only indications of the previous night are the slight tremor in Santana's fingers and the cutting way Brittany watches her, careful and concerned. Santana looks a vision as always, like nothing had ever occurred.

(Her willingness and readiness to hide her faults is at once awesome and worrying.)

The dew brushes along the soles of their feet as they exit their room and begin the trek to the center of the city. Brittany's mind is as much of a whirlwind as the gale that has begun to howl with the promise of bitter rain, but Santana is as blissfully blank as the void of her dreams. Trying to remember gives Santana pains that start within and radiate outwards, into the very edges of her. She stops trying.

Quinn waits for them by the Mother-Tree, a golden sword strapped tightly to her waist and bow slung over her slender back. The cold seems not to affect her at all, for she is as still as the statues of her ancestors, gazing out at the forests with trepidation. It seems she trusts the weather as little as they; the clouds allow no sunlight to leak into their forests, and shadows haunt their every path. So high up in the north, the cold comes swiftly**—**a pack of wolves on the hunt.

"Are you ready?" She asks them, eyeing their sluggish steps. Both look exhausted for reasons she's unable to fathom, but it cannot be two lovers kept awake by each other. Sandalio hugs too hard to them, the darkness bending too close.

"Of course." Brittany agrees, rubbing one eye as she jostles her emptying pack, making her spear rattle about. Without the cloying weight of the medallion she feels lighter, less burdened. It might also be due their dwindling supplies, but she tries not to think about that too much. "Do we leave immediately?"

"Not quite." They turn their heads to the voice in time to witness Sophias emerge from one of the trees. In the almost non-existent gloom her tattoos glow like pathways on her skin, soft and hazy. From it, the whites of her eyes turn silver. "Did you think you could truly leave without first saying farewell?"

Santana has the state of mind to look sheepish as she grins.

"Come here, both of you." She sighs in fond exasperation, drawing them into the wizened fold of her arms. She smooths down the dark hair still messy from sleep and strokes her thumb along Santana's cheekbone, winding her fingers in Brittany's braid as she does. The two of them together present a beautiful harmony told to her from the earth; the very essence of them melds together the closer they remain, taking two magnificent things and merging it into a singular entity. If only they knew, the world would be at their mercy. Or cruelty.

"Now, never expect this will be the last you see of me. An old crone like me has many ways of keeping up with her charges, do you hear? If you misbehave the trees will tell me of it, and then you will wake the next morn to a raven pecking off your ear."

Brittany draws back with a frown. "Were you the one that sent those two to us yesterday?"

Sophias matches her expression. "No, child. You had ravens?"

"Does it matter?" Quinn groans in exasperation, her hooves shuffling anxiously upon the ground. "We lose all our light if we buy into your rambling of folklore and old wives' tales."

The elder centauress sends her a scolding look. "You should know better than to rush a parting, Cuinn. Gods know when we might cross paths again."

Quinn lets out a long-suffering sigh, shifting the bags slung around the bulk of her body. "Fine. You can find me at city's edge when we can finally leave." Her steps are muffled as she slowly trots into the underbrush.

Sophias rolls her eyes. "Such impatience in one so young, I cringe to think what she will be like as an adult. Regardless... I have parting gifts for you."

She fishes in her own sack to the rustling of fabrics and unknown goods inside. Brittany tries to stand on her toes to see into it, only to receive a look that has her slowly lowering back down to Santana's side.

"Cuinn will have things like food and drink for you. These, I think, will be much more... interesting."

From her pack she procures a thick run of fur which absorbs whatever light filters in through the thick trees, each individual hair like silk that sways with the breeze. There are rivers of a lighter brown that run in sporadic patterns and within it Santana can feel the primality of the animal that once possessed it. "The winters are cold further north." Sophias reveals, placing it in Santana's hands. "This wolfskin robe will do you well. Taken from a massive beast that prayed on able warriors like babes**—**can you feel its strength?"

"Of course." She replies, fondling the soft material in her hands. In her mind's eye she sees a regal beast with piercing amber eyes watching her from a craggy cliff. "Thank you."

Sophias also gifts her with another charm; emeralds as green as the lush forests that twinkle and clank gently with those already tied.

_ Emeralds have long been a source of healing emotional and mental wounds, mija_. She hears the echo of her mother's voice whisper in her head, soft and knowledgeable. _When the moon is bright it is at its fullest and greatest potential. Use it wisely to calm a troubled spirit._

Somehow she doubts such a small thing will calm her chaotic dreams, but who is she to refuse a thoughtful gift? Her collection is complete now, and they twinkle in all different hues to an individual chime.

Brittany twines it through her fingers with a grin, stroking over the smooth gems and admiring how well they meld with Santana's ruby, proud upon the tip of her staff. She spies herself in the reflection, the blue of her eyes lost to the glow.

Sophias taps her shoulder and she turns curiously, spying a weapon clutched in her hand. "For you," the old centauress declares warmly. Brittany looks at her in disbelief for a second, hesitantly taking the beautiful axe that has been gifted to her. Intricate inlays of steel paint a picture of charging aurochs and roaring bears, painstakingly cut through the iron and fused together; stamped where the head meets the shaft is the _valknuter, _three triangles fused into one design and sacred to Odinn. The weapon is lightweight but the edge of the blade is painstakingly sharp—it flows with no resistance as she twirls it in the air. Somehow, the centaurs have turned the iron a brilliantly deep blue.

"The animals are so _pretty_." She whispers in awe, tilting it from side to side so it can better catch the light, before Santana jabs an elbow into her side. "Huh? Oh!" Brittany launches herself at the old mystic, impacting her abdomen with a grunt and winding her arms the best she can around her midsection. "Thank you! I will put it to good use, I promise!"

Sophias chuckles and pets her hair for a moment, gently pushing her by the shoulders in the direction that Quinn had vanished. "Not too good a use, I would hope. Now go before Cuinn decides to leave you here."

Before Brittany can pull Santana away, Sophias catches the mystic's hand.

"The road you look to is lonely and filled with hatred." She warns lowly, her eyes softening as she takes in the impatient viking bouncing upon her heels. "You both deserve greater than that. Walk in the light, priestess."

Santana doesn't get a chance to reply before Brittany tugs her forward, away and out of sight.

They meet Quinn not soon after, standing impatiently by the city's edge. Strewn about her are two packs stuffed to the brim, another strapped to her own back. A scabbard dangles from her waist and brushes against her foreleg with the pivot of her hips as she turns to face them.

"About time." She grumbles, hooking the packs with her sword and throwing them at her companions. Santana's almost knocks her over with its weight.

Brittany peels it open curiously. "What did you put in here?" She asks with evident excitement—so many gifts in one day! It's a shame that she has nothing to give in return.

"Food, drink, a bed roll, some silver... herbs for Santana, a map to find your way. Sophias enchanted it so that you may never be lost. You know how to use it, I presume?"

Santana nods briskly.

Silver is priceless in the sense that even the poorest farmer will gladly trade in it to rent a bed or two for a night, or perhaps even a decent meal. Quinn has seen first-hand the bottomless pit that resides in Brittany's belly. "Now, we need to get moving. Dawn will soon break."

They soon set off after Brittany transfers their goods into her own pack—_I mean no disrespect, but I like mine better... it has more colour_—at a difficult pace for those without equine legs, Quinn covering great distances with every movement. Santana, with the shortest stride of them all, grunts in exasperation.

"Will you slow down? I know you seem eager to get rid of us, but it is of no use if we exhaust ourselves so early."

Quinn turns to her, slowing a fraction. "By the time you reach Finnmork the battles will be over."

Santana bristles. "Not all of us have the _honour_ of being some demented cross between animal and man. May I ask what branch has decided to implant itself in your rear end and make itself known to all of us?"

"Santana!" Brittany hisses, but is ill-equipped to disguise the mirth in her tone. "Ignore her, we had a late night and now she's grumpy."

"Is that what mortals call it now?" Strangely, the indication does not shake Santana in the way it used to, and she simply scoffs before stopping completely. (The centaurs, while some ill-tempered, pose no threat to her. She pales to think what Betar will make of them.)

"Both of you, stop it." Brittany interjects, shouldering between them where they have advanced until they are as close as the height difference can allow. "Why do the both of you argue so much? You act almost the same sometimes."

They both level their stare to her, appalled.

"I am nothing like**—**"

"How dare you**—**"

Both their mouths clamp shut at her glare, which quickly morphs into a pleased smile. "See? You both listen to me and nobody else."

Santana frowns at the obvious (to her) attack on her pride. "I listen to no one but myself." She asserts confidently, ignoring the deep chuckle that comes from the centauress, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. Even Sandalio lays down to put his paws over his eyes.

"Are you sure, San? You really liked listening to me a few nights ago."

Brittany starts in surprise when a hand is laid over her mouth rather firmly. "Britt," Santana hisses lowly, painfully aware of the heat gathering in her cheeks, "what have we said about those kinds of conversations?"

"Ifff phra'vat?"

"Correct." In a huff she sweeps by Quinn, raising her staff when she goes to say something. "No words from you." She tries again, only to be hit in the eye by one of her swinging charms. "Nah-ah, none. Nada."

* * *

><p>They leave Quinn hours later when the sun has arched high in the sky and the thickness of the trees has thinned noticeably. Brittany is beside herself at the first feeling of true warmth upon her skin in weeks, though it is tempered by the bitter chill that has now begun in earnest. Santana dons her wolfskin robe with great thankfulness and feels the power of the beast wrap around her in a comfortable embrace.<p>

(Brittany says it makes her look cunning like the beast she wears, but those of the North see the wolf as an entirely different creature, evil and full of hate. It even goes that one day one will swallow their gods.)

Before they had departed, Brittany had gifted her old axe to their ally, swearing solemnly that so long as she is to hold it, Kaupang and its people would be glad to stand by their side. Quinn took the troll-killer gladly and laid one hand on her shoulder. "My father says that we will do nothing other than raid supplies, but I think otherwise. Our city grows restless with war upon the horizon and begin to sharpen their weapons again."

The image of centaurs charging down the mountains, blowing horns and crying out as their deadly arrows fall from the sky in whining droves, is perhaps as enchanting as it is unlikely, but one can hope.

They set off to the northeast, towards Sviar and their bountiful rivers. The journey will be hard and their rest limited—walk from sun-high to mid-sun, a small break, then again until sun-down... go further by the light of Santana's making, and finally sleep from moon-high until dawn where the cycle restarts—but Brittany has grown up running these mountains and lakes, climbing over every nook and exploring every tree. Santana is no stranger to travel herself, having crossed Iberia multiple times both on foot and horseback.

Speaking of which...

"Why do we not just find a couple of horses and be done with it?" Santana complains when the chill of coming-winter readily begins to set into her worn shoes. "The journey would ride so much faster, with less of this walking."

Brittany's lips curl into an amused smile, swinging their conjoined hands between them. "I already told you, San, the roads here are dangerous and filled with bandits."

Her companion scoffs, tossing her long hair over her shoulder with an arrogant flourish. "Bandits? Is that all? Together we could be the one taking things from _them_."

"But that's mean."

"It**—** what?" She stares incredulously at Brittany for a second, barely catching the faintest twitches of a smirk. "You know I hate it when you do that," she grumps, knocking their

hips together and causing the warrior to wheel off-balance, "I can never tell when you tell the truth."

"I always tell truths," Brittany argues, "sometimes I just tell them slant."

"Is that not the same thing?"

"Never."

Santana rolls her eyes noticeably but says nothing, continuing their walk along the animal ruts that have scored great pathways into the earth. The world is beginning to change hues, taking the green of summer and twisting it into the brilliance of autumn where the air is full with the sound of animals mating and galloping about, the call of the elk as they scrape their mighty horns over the trees. Great strips of bark have been torn away by their antlers, some wounds reaching far over their heads. Soon these places will be filled with the dry crinkle of leaves and the whispering wind that howls through the barren branches, but for now, a lively hidden city it will remain.

"We should make camp." Brittany notes, breaking their idle chatter as the first tongues of darkness snake across the blue sky. Sometimes she finds it strange how quickly time parts while in Santana's presence.

They find a cave not too far from their current position, where the waves of time have carved out a hollow in the rock faces of the fjord. It is cold but not wet—fire jumps to life upon Santana's fingertips as soon as they enter. Brittany gathers wood and watches in wonder as the priestess lights it with a casual flick of her wrist, flame sparking on the pile to consume and soon crackle into a cheery camp. No matter how many times she sees it, it never ceases to amaze her.

Santana spies Brittany staring, self-consciously curling her fist to extinguish the dancing flames licking her skin. "What?"

Brittany doesn't reply, simply crawling over to where she lays on her bed roll, her hands planting themselves on either side of Santana's hips so she can hover over her, one leg slipping between her thighs and applying the lightest, unintentional pressure. The priestess inhales sharply at the sudden spike of pleasure that shoots from the center of her outwards, captivated by the dark blue of her companion's eyes. "You can be so amazing sometimes." Brittany murmurs, her head ducking to suckle under the tender hinge of Santana's jaw.

"Only sometimes?" She snarks out around a moan, her arms winding around Brittany's back to pull her ever closer. There is a smirk against her skin coupled with the sharp nip of teeth.

"Maybe a little bit more than sometimes..." Brittany teases her, tongue dragging a hot stripe to her ear where her mouth latches on to tug. She relishes in every broken groan Santana produces, slowly laying her down upon the bed-roll until her weight pins Santana, hot and demanding, to the ground. She settles herself between her legs, the insistent press of her pelvis between the part of Santana's thighs a dizzying mix of excitement and apprehension.

Brittany could simply lay kissing Santana for hours, but there is something building inside of her unable to be ignored. It grows and flows and curls itself tight around her spine until she is shifting restlessly with its constant pressure, demanding more of the skin bared to her and more of the cries given to her—her lips crash into Santana's with a hunger for something she doesn't yet know, but the growl rumbling in her throat as her tongue touches the hot inside of Santana's mouth shows that it slowly approaches. Fingers wind harshly in her blonde hair and she gasps as Santana bites, not unkindly, at her lower lip until it bruises and blushes bright red in the darkness. She feels the grin against her even as the body beneath arches up, searching for something equally as elusive.

She is the sailor and Santana is the siren as those fingers trace their way over her cloth shirt, sneaking under the tight belt to smooth her hands up the naked skin presented to her. Brittany's bare flesh under her touch is all the things Santana never knew she wanted, and she thinks of nothing at all as the belt slides from Brittany's waist and clatters against the ground. Free to roam, she skates her hands all over Brittany's abdomen, taking in the muscles taut with the strain of her own arousal and the way her own heart booms the further she ventures.

Brittany pants into her mouth, fingers twisting in the skins beneath them as she leans into Santana's touch. Part of her aches to let those hands caress every corner of her but a greater part yearns to take back control so rightfully earned. So her hands come to Santana's neck, hastily undoing the toggles that hold the sharp dip in her robe together, peeling it open to see the silk slip underneath. She licks her lips at the caramel complexion presented to her—something feral rears as she leans down and bites at the pronounced collarbone. A choked gasp is heard from above as Santana's legs wrap around her waist and tighten, pulling her down further as the mark blooms and begins to colour an angry red. _To match my blood_, Brittany muses even as her hand sneaks into Santana's robe and trails down her sternum.

Yet, none of the noises made yet match the sound when her hand finally cups her right breast through her slip, palming the weight firmly and shivering as the stiff peak of Santana's nipple presses hard into her palm. It is a low, throaty groan that sends everything in Brittany aching to please the girl**—**woman**—**below her, fingers rolling the flesh and her thumb swiping over the hard nub, pinching teasingly and smirking when the grip on her hips becomes so tight it crushes.

"Britt..." She husks and Brittany takes the chance to look up into her face; Santana is a vision as she stares at her with pupils blown and swollen lips parted into a pant—she is restless and wanting, reflected into every nuance of her movement and expression, tugging at her lover's locks as she desperately tries to get something, _anything_ to still the ache that's taken up home between her thighs.

But Brittany always knows what she wants - she spies the faintest hints of a dark grin before all her breath is stolen from her in one quick motion of Brittany's mouth, a warm tongue prodding at her flesh and teeth taking the firm peak of her nipple between them. Even through the silk she feels the heat of Brittany's mouth like a bolt of lightning pulling the air from her lungs, encapsulating her as the rest of her weight pressed against her, needy and smothering. Santana whimpers as Brittany sucks hard until she's sure she'll be tender for the rest of her days—everything is entirely too much, and she pulls at her hair until they can kiss again with the near-violent clash of tongues.

A loud crack from the fire brings them from their haze, and Brittany looks over to see it has almost gone out. Pulled from each other, she begins to realize just how cold the cave really is, pressing herself further into Santana for warmth. The frenzy leaves them until they simply trade languid kisses, her hand soft but present on Santana's chest.

"What was that for?" Santana rasps, still husky with arousal. The ache in her thighs has reduced to a dull pound, still noticeable but no longer overwhelming. Brittany's weight is now more comforting than anything else.

Her lover shrugs with a half-smile, brushing their noses together. "I like you. Sometimes it shows itself like that."

Santana chuckles, pulling her closer. "I like you, too."

They lay there a moment, watching the dying shadows dance along the stone walls. "We should probably fix that."

"Indeed."

They don't bother to move.

* * *

><p><em>"You called for me, my lord?"<em>

_ Harald places his goblet down upon the wooden table and eyes the man before him with scarcely veiled distaste. Though he is grateful for the lands that the jarl—no, __**king**__—of Francia has given him, and the power that comes attached, he understands little of his soft people and their ways. All around him their languages grate against the northern tongue he hears always from the Sami and his own that have followed him through frozen winters and scorching summers, his own tongue seeming to be so much smoother than this... garbage that comes from the mouths of priests. They sweat under the heat of their fires though winter is coming, and complain of the way his army has settled down upon the shores of Taunmark. They know nothing of what it is to lead men into battle, knowing many of them will fall in a place they used to call their home._

_ This one... this one is different. The priests hold nothing but a blind scorn in their hearts for the heathens of the north, but this one possesses a directional rage to the men who took his son and gutted him to their false gods. There is a purpose there, waiting to be unleashed, lingering under the surface under the veil of delivering the peaceful word of God._

_ If there is one thing Harald has learned, it is that there will be no peace so long as the religions fight for dominance._

_ "Yes," he says, wiping down his hands on his leather greaves, "I did. I have a job for you, priest."_

_ Harald won't bother to learn his name, not when he will undoubtedly fall in time. Few survive the harsh winters of the north._

_ "We prepare to move into the southern reaches of Nor Veg and Sviar shortly, but there is nowhere to make port. Little fishing towns will not be able to accommodate our fleet, and our ships cannot moor. One of the only options is attempting to anchor in Kaupang."_

_ (There, the first spark of recognition, and the fires of hatred that accompany it.)_

_ "Kaupang, sir? The trading town?"_

_ "The only major port close enough, but they are... difficult to persuade. I need you to ensure us passage."_

_ A bead of sweat rolls across the priest's brow, and his jaw works soundlessly. Harald raises from his seat and languidly paces around the chubby man, eyeing the short, shaven hair—nothing like his own long blond locks. Such awkward shapes are these southerners. "But, sir... why me? You know of my__**—**__"_

_ "I know of it, and I care not for it." Harald snaps, bringing his palm down upon the wooden post of his tent. It cracks and wobbles violently—the man flinches at the sound. "You will do as I say and bring us safe port, or we will have to saw our way through by force. I am of the north, I __**know**__ what they are capable of in battle and in the aftermath. Do you want your limbs torn from you by a dog? Hm? Is that how you want your pathetic life to end?"_

_ He shakes his head furiously, his oddly chopped hair flying about._

_ "Good. You leave in a fortnight." He says nothing about how supplies must first be gathered on the off-chance that the jarl takes unkindly to his visit. The less snivelling he hears, the better. "Now get out of my tent and find a partner to bring alongside you."_

_ Betar is known to him personally, and Harald holds a sneaking suspicion he will not open his ports without a fight. All the better—if he could only best Silver-Spear in combat, his position in the southernmost reaches would be assured. The leader strides from his tent with his lamellar scaling blinding all that walk past him, the gentle clink of his steps almost indistinguishable from the rabble outside. Sami warriors huddle together in their reindeer furs and talk in their muddled languages in low, hushed voices, as if imparting a secret, with a few women scattered amongst them to tend to their clothing and weapons. They have been useful thus far, skilled in the ways of the land, finding the best places to hunt both animals and humans to fuel his army. If he could trade every priest for a Sami, he would in a heartbeat—Harald supposes he isn't a decent Christian, thinking that way, but his mind has yet to truly wrap around their backwards religion and that little book with strange words that seem to run off the page._

_ He passes by William who has finally moved into his fifteenth winter; the longsword is still __miles too big for his body but his muscles have learned to adapt accordingly, his eyes sharp as the hawk's as it curves its way seamlessly through the air and into an invisible target. His men watch from afar with an approving gaze and he lets them, knowing they will be motivated by the little warrior with hands of steel and a heart equally as strong. Even the natives glance to him at times, clutching their little pendants and shaking their heads in disbelief._

_ But there is one visit that always intrigues him. Almost every day at moon-high, without fail, he visits the priestess in her cage. One would think she would descend to the level of a mad animal, kept in such a small enclosure for such a lengthy period, but she never gives in to the temptations of insanity he has seen so many others bend towards. Often she tries to sleep through the noon sun and the priests that drone forever in their own confusing tongue, opting to stay awake at night and watch the slumbering camp through the eyes of both an enemy and a curiosity. Though he attempts to talk to her every dark she never responds, verbally or otherwise; it bothers him little. Harald much enjoys simply watching her and the way she elegantly twines her hands in search of an unknown realm._

_ Today she has curled into a little ball for warmth, hands clenched under her arms. Fall is here without a doubt, and it brings with it the painful chill of the grave, seeping into the bones of even the well rested and dragging them down. She, with her thin robes and buckskin cloak, has nearly no protection against the wind._

_ Harald frowns, approaching the cage and reaching for his throat. She watches him warily the whole time, counting his footsteps and measuring his stance. Yet another thing he likes of her—she is never caught off-guard._

_ "Here." He says gruffly, unsnapping his cloak and poking it through the bars. Bearskin, a gift from his brother. It has lasted him through many a winter. "They should move you inside so you avoid catching your death."_

_ The high priestess eyes him suspiciously, her gaze darting to the thick cloak brushing at her ankles and his unreadable expression, gently petting the material. God only knows what she thinks... perhaps she feels the spirit of the animal? __**Ridiculous**__, says the new and Christian side of Harald, but the one brought up in the old ways isn't so sure._

_ Eventually she nods and mumbles something in her own language, dragging it over herself and cocooning away from the wind. Such a small woman appears dwarfed in such a thing, and he can't help but let his lips curl up at the edges._

_ "What is your name, priestess?" He asks her as has become a nightly ritual of them, but as usual, he gets no reply. All the response there is are the whites of her eyes glittering from in the shadow of his clothing. Somehow, he doesn't terribly mind. He'll get it one day._

* * *

><p><strong>October 3rd, 912<strong>

Days pass as they must, the nights becoming deeper and longer as the winds turn frozen. Sandalio's fur runs thicker, tufts of it sprouting until the entirety of him is covered in a beautiful, wiry coat that wards away the cold as the pads of his feet toughen to compensate for the endless walking his mistresses subject him to day after day. Not that he minds—he spends all his time with his two favourite people in the world, curling up to the sound of their quiet laughter from where they wind themselves in their own furs late in the dark and tangle together as one being would. He knows little of mating—something tells him he will never truly have a mate or pups, though this bothers him less than it should—but knows enough to wonder where their own pups will come from, when the time is upon them. Nature dictates they lack something in their composition to make them a viable pair, but he knows love when he sees it.

He enjoys being out here. Though his tall mistress never lets that fishy land get to her (not noticeably), it gives him pause how much more carefree his other mistress is. She smiles more often, not hesitating to lace hands or give one of those large smiles that please them both so much. Gone is the venom in her eyes.

Except on the darks where her chest takes on the dank scent of Not-Breath and her eyes stink of dead rot, then it smothers him, but her mate has always been able to vanquish the darkness. Still, he helps her keep warm on _those_ darks, shuffling his bulk to press against whichever side is not covered completely by her lover. She never says it in words, but grateful touch of her hand is enough for him.

If there is one things that humans do, it's talk. It seems that they are always communicating, silently or out-loud, running things over and over into an endless stream. Sandalio allows it to crash all over him as they sit beneath a towering pine tree, his snout tucked under his paws as he studies the two, sitting so close their thighs press together and they share circulation through their singular heartbeat.

"What are we going to do once we return to Kaupang?" His tall mistress—others call her Bretagne, but Brittany fits so much fonder on her shoulders—asks with a frown, knitting her brows together. They feed from the strange things the horse-men gave to them, Brittany sticking her fingers into the container full of honey to scoop the dried fruits from their depths and stuff them into her mouth—the syrup drips all over her arms and face, coating much of herself in sugar, and Sandalio licks his lips in anticipation of the grooming he'll need to deliver. "If we ever win this war, that is. Sometimes I think it'll go on until the day we die."

The other—Santana, as exotic as her magic—shrugs helplessly, nestling back against the trunk. "Do we have to go back?" She asks, placing her chin in her palm. "We could make a home out here, just the two of us without your responsibilities getting in the way." It's a foolish dream, she knows, but an attractive one. The people in Kaupang trust her little as it is, and she sees the way Brittany resists to her father's demands. Like it or not, her resistances will eventually crumble.

Brittany clasps their hands, and Santana is able to mask her grimace in a fond smile despite the sticky embrace.

"One day, after this is over, we will leave Nor Veg and explore the world." Brittany promises, kissing her knuckles gently. "We can go back to Iberia with your mother, further south into the hot lands of sand, or maybe even Germania when Harald comes to his senses after we beat him back home with his carrion-eaters they call priests."

A stir of excitement in her belly, but Santana knows this day is far away. The battle looming upon the horizon will be costly and may make it impossible for them to simply pack their bags and sail away. "Do you want to return? It is your home, after all, and it would be selfish of me to drag you alongside."

Brittany simply smiles, leaning forward as if imparting a secret. "My home is with you." She lets out a noise of surprise as Santana seals their lips together in thanks, rocking where she sits as arms wind firmly around her neck, stickiness and all forgotten.

If Sandalio could roll his eyes, he would. They've been unable to go minutes without touching in some respect, always giving glances and locking lips whenever they cease moving—and sometimes not even that stops them. It's ridiculous to think they once believed that there was nothing between them save for the insistent pull of friendship. If they begin now they won't move for an eternity, and with that in mind he pads over and throws himself in their lap, huffing indignantly.

Santana starts at the warm body that pushes her sideways, turning to glare at the accusing dark eyes. "What was that for?" She attempts to shuffle him back onto the ground, but if anything he grows more stubborn, winding his paws into the fabric of Brittany's gambeson and hiding his snout in her side.

"Maybe he thinks we forgot about him." Brittany coos, scratching gently behind one little ear, smiling as she receives a snuffling growl of satisfaction. Santana gives in and pats his hind, letting her fingers run through his thick fur. "You would follow us, right boy? Even if we went to the deserts where the heat is scorching every moon?" A warm tongue laps at her sweet fingers in reassurance as his tail thumps against Santana's thigh.

The warrior goes to eat again in the silence that descends, pouting at the sticky mess of fur and honey now coating her fingers. Santana feeds her instead, rolls of dried venison pounded with herbs, tearing off chunk after chunk and raising it to Brittany's lips. She gives a playful nibble of her fingertips after every grateful bite, sliding her tongue teasingly around her knuckles and into the crease of her palm. Santana scolds her with a playful swat on the nose, purposely feeding the rest of her meal to Sandalio, who slurps it up noisily with great rumbles of contentment.

"I see him sometimes, you know." Santana says quietly as she scratches at his scruff, staring at the ground.

"Who, Sandalio?" Brittany asks in confusion, looking up from where she was receiving a well-needed hand-bath.

"No, Harald. His army appears in my dreams as of late." The banners of his people fly high in the cold sun, an indistinguishable mass of blue and gold against the backdrop of her visions. "I think he is a decent man," she says, remembering the kindness when he spoke to the shadowed form she _knows _was her mother, "underneath this need to conquer. Why he bases himself to slaughtering villages with no protection is beyond my comprehension. He has no need of their supplies or meager riches."

Brittany shrugs. "Because he is told to, and because he can." Santana looks at her curiously and the way her brow has dropped into a frown. "We are the same as him—we cast out to lands, distant or near, and pillage in order to bring back our own spoils. You were there in Aarhus, you remember what it was like... people dying and screaming, houses burning, all their possessions being spilled into the streets. Those to the south call us savages for a reason."

"And this is any better?" Santana scoffs, looking around. "Killing those who refuse to accept their false god in the name of religion? That is not what worship is! You do what you do because you need what the other lands have to survive these winters, while they slaughter for nothing more than some misguided attempt to wipe out whomever they deem _heathens_—and believe me, there are many of them." Her cheeks steadily turn red in the midst of her rant, her hands waving in the air as she swears to Brittany's innocence—Brittany, for her part, simply props her jaw upon her closed fist and watches her with a fond smile.

"**—**and because of that, if you are savages then they must be too." With no response, she turns to Brittany who grins back.

"What?" She asks self-consciously, running her hand through her thick, dark hair. "Am I wrong?"

"Perhaps," Brittany muses, "but I'm more concerned with how suddenly attractive you are when you become firm about something." Santana flushes, the heat of her cheeks deepening, but becomes distracted at Brittany's pensive expression. "But that reminds me... where has your sudden mastery of my language come from? Two moons ago you were speaking in simple sentences."

Santana shrugs, trying to subtly rub the redness from her face. "It must be the _galdr_. Sophias did say it was the magic of tongues."

A lecherous smirk. "I'd much like to see how your tongue has improved." That earns her a smack upside the head from the priestess and a playful scowl.

"Are you going to start something you are unable to finish, Brittany?" She purrs, about to lean in, but a well-placed paw to the stomach halts her advance. Santana lets out a long-suffering sigh, flicking one of Sandalio's ears in annoyance, slumping back against the tree trunk. Brittany pouts all the same at her lack of kisses.

To compensate, Brittany wraps her foot delicately under Santana's ankle. "What are we to do about Harald? Can you do things while dreaming?"

Santana shakes her head in annoyance. "No, nothing more than watch."

"What was he doing?"

"Talking to some kind of priest." She squints in recollection. "He looked familiar, but I doubt he has ever set foot here." The blond hair and the set of his jaw tugs the edges of her memory, but they flee before she has chance to make them take root. "I believe they were near Aarhus. I recognize the town."

Brittany frowns. "Aarhus? They must be looking to sail."

"Where?" Santana asks curiously.

"I would think Sviar... there are larger ports without the hostility they would face here."

"And if they try to anchor in Kaupang?"

The warrior scoffs, stabbing at the ground with her spear. "It depends on my father's mood. If he feels spiteful that day, he may very well let them land to prove me wrong."

"Then he is a fool." Santana grumbles, snapping her fingers agitatedly and letting the white flame burn bright upon them. "A blind man could see they mean harm."

Brittany runs her tongue along her teeth hesitantly. Perhaps she does not agree with her father as of late, but a fool? He has guided Kaupang through many times when the former jarl was unable or unwilling, gaining the favour of a town known for its shifting morality. His choices have been questionable recently, foolish even, but after so many years of loving him unconditionally the habit of defending is hard to break. Santana must sense her turmoil, for she glances up with kind eyes. "Apologies, love. His actions just feel rather... insensible."

"Oh, I know." Brittany huffs, still letting the smile take over her face at the slipped name. "Sometimes I swear Mikhail and I are the only _sensible_ ones in that town. He made too many enemies with... with Sam."

The wound is still raw, as much as she tries to shift her mind from the thought. The refusal to burn his body in respect led them to the curse and the monstrosity he became, but the townsfolk believe in old superstition rather than reason. It is difficult to sway them, and Brittany feels that now familiar frustration bubbling for her kin.

Santana frowns, studying her. "Did he make you an enemy?"

For once, Brittany has no answer.

Their ruby gleams in the lowlight and she feels the uncertainty pulse as strongly in her chest as it does in Brittany's—the gradual erosion of trust in a place she used to unshakably call her home wears on the youth that once used to fall from her every pore. There is a maturity in her that was not seen when Santana first became her companion, a weariness that weighs at the edges of her eyes. She longs to chip away at the heaviness and cast away the stones her heritage of these wastes gifts to her. Something tells her that their return to Kaupang will be the heralding of something else entirely.

* * *

><p><em>It has been many days that she has lain in this flimsy prison, surrounded by blind men and protected by the very one that chased her from the country of her ancestors. She attempts to remember what it must be like in Iberia with the unchanging seasons and scorching sun, but this cold has bitten into her bones and refuses to dissipate. Though her fingers have long grown stiff and numb, the touch of the Goddess is eternal.<em>

_ These men in their robes of cotton and silk try her endless patience. They tap her with crosses like it will make a difference, splash her with tainted water the one time a day they take her out of her cage to rid herself of her bodily needs. Their silvery tongue slips around her like a noose—so close to Spanish she understands snatches of it, flitting in and out of her hearing, a constant drone that invades her mind even in her dreamless sleep. It drives her to the brink of sanity at times—nothing breaks their monotone drone as they attempt; unchangeably, unwaveringly, unalterably, to cast out the sinner that must sit in her soul. They must be the ones that have lost their minds, putting their entire faith in a god who commands them to do unspeakable acts in his name. It freezes the blood to think of it._

_ (Or is it simply the monstrosity of man using worship as an excuse for evil?)_

_ Samhain draws closer, and with it the taint of darkness she feels to the north. It cloys her with its stench and writhes along the edges of the waters, pulsing outwards in undulating waves in search of more minds from which to feed. It comes from where she can undoubtedly feel her daughter's presence struggling through her own battles to aid in whatever side she has chosen._

_ Oh, how she misses Santana._

_ She feels her heartbeat against her own breast, surely, the pendant still glowing white and pure, but knowing she is alive is not the same as knowing she is well. Nearly a winter whole has passed since they parted ways in such a hurry under the guise of night and every morn she prayed for her safety. She is too far away to map nuances but a mother always knows her child—there is something troubling her, far out of her own control. Two things, truly, but one holds a much different significance. On some nights she feels a love rarely known swell in her chest for reasons unseen and knows it is not of her directly, no—somebody has come to be her daughter's guardian and ward away the terrors of the dark. Whoever this may be, they will have her eternal thanks when they finally meet once again._

_ "Oi, witch. I'ma talkin' to ya!" Her thoughts are broken by a voice that slurs its words her—her eyes shift over to a man decked in leather skirts and a horn of wine clutched in his hand. The drunkenness seethes from him in waves and centers in his glassy eyes. "Everybody been sayin' yer hard ta get, huh? That ya like ta play coy?" She ignores him—it's the only way to deal with pigs, after all, but he presses himself against the bars until he invades the very air that she breathes. "Why dun ya step out this cage and lemme show ya what a real man does to disobedient whores, huh? How he __**fucks**__ them inta submission?"_

_ Her lips curl into a grimace. "I assure you, this witch has higher standards that drunken scum like you." Were men always such filth? It begs the question how she fell pregnant with Santana in the first place._

_ "Scum like me, eh? So says the heathen! Boys, the whore says I'm the scum!" There is nobody around, naturally, even the priests retired to their tents to sleep off an exhausting day of chanting and pacing and throwing curses. But he pretends regardless, sweeping his arms in a wide circle and fixing his beady gaze upon her. "I'll make ya beg for my cock, just ya wait." His hand snakes between the bars to brush at her black, matted locks; next moment he skids along the ground, rolling about on the dirt until he runs into a tent twenty paces away, collapsing it into rubble. She snarls angrily, eyes flashing a brilliant blue in the darkness surrounding them._

_ "My name is Maria Lopez of Iberia, and the only thing begging will be __**you**__." It swirls around her hands and through the cracks of her fingers, crawling comfortingly up her arms to the gentle pulse of the earth. "I can grant you the mercy of a swift death, but I do not believe you are worthy of it."_

_ He sputters unintelligibly from the ground. Soon, the air takes upon a smell of fresh urine._

_** Hush, child. He is not worthy of your attention.**_

_ Maria sighs and shakes her hands briefly, the blue disappearing as quickly as it had come. It takes only a fearsome scowl for the man to go scrambling off in search of new greaves, hobbling awkwardly as if wounded. It causes a rare smirk to grace her lips._

_ "Lopez, hm? A mysterious name for a mysterious woman." Another voice, this time familiar. She turns in time to see Harald stopped in front of her cage with crossed arms, regarding her with curiosity._

_ She sighs in irritation. "What do you want?"_

_ He laughs—deep, an earthquake rumbling. "Ah, she speaks! Must I send men to embarrass themselves every time before you agree to have a conversation with me?"_

_ "I agreed to nothing." Maria snaps, twisting his bearskin cloak further about herself and sitting heavily on the ground, stretching her legs the best she can. "You simply find the time to spend your days watching me instead of leading your people."_

_ To his credit, Harald seems unfazed. "It is not often we receive a beautiful and intelligent woman in our midst. They tend to be one or the other."_

_ Her mind flashes briefly to Santana wistfully, and her voice is softer as she replies. "Your words will get you nowhere, lord. I have nothing to give."_

_ "Of course you do." The leader muses, slowly pacing about her cage. "Everyone has something. You, for example, have your tongue. Your accent is very faint, by the way. It is impressive."_

_ A shrug. "I travelled much in my youth."_

_ "And your daughter?" He asks, raising an eyebrow. "Does she speak like you?"_

_ Maria's head snaps up so quick he is surprised she doesn't injure herself—any attempt to disengage is gone as she pulls herself up against the bars with her teeth bared into an almost feral grimace. "You do what you want with me, but you leave her alone. She is but a child!" She wonders frantically how they know of Santana, but Harald is quick to beat her to the question._

_ "Did you think a foreigner permanently in Kaupang with magic at the tips of her fingers would not draw attention? The towns were buzzing after your daughter laid her hands upon a cripple and healed her with a single touch. She is truly gifted, just like her mother."_

_ Healing? Surely the claim is exaggerated—nothing can knit flesh together like that._

_ "It would be such a shame if you came to share your cell with your kin, would it not?" Harald says quietly, but his tone is not smug or menacing, rather observational._

_ "Lay a hand on her, and I swear to the Goddess I will not rest until your bones litter the earth." She growls lowly, her knuckles white against the bars she grasps. Her magic grips his throat in a __deathly embrace as her phantom reach wraps itself around his flesh. The man opposite her smiles slightly._

_ "I, personally, wish to see no harm come of her. As long as she accepts the one true God into her heart, she will be well."_

_ Maria scowls, throwing herself the little distance she can put between them and letting him go. She knows her daughter and her stubbornness, her inability to do things any way but her own. If this god is not in her heart—and Maria knows he isn't—then she would rather be struck down and defeated than bend her head and accept her mercy. "Santana will never bow to you."_

_ Harald sighs, and the sound is truly regretful. "That is what I feared. The others will not let her transgressions go so quickly... especially the priests. Once they catch wind of her relation to you, high priestess, well... let us say it will not end well."_

_ "This is what you do for your worship?" She whispers, looking to him. He is supposed to be a northman, proud and true of his ancient heritage, not basing himself down to these soft men who nothing of what true love means. "Your god is mad."_

_ "Aye, priestess, sometimes I think that too."_

* * *

><p><strong>October 9th, 912<strong>

For once, Brittany wakes before Santana. No nightmares rouse either of them from dreams, and the measured breathing from beside her reassures that nothing comes to visit them unjustly in the night. Dawn is just beginning to break across the sky in a plethora of colours, but red, red, red like the veins hidden under Santana's skin and the fullness of her lips and the colour of her smile in the middle of the night. She is the colour that has bled itself into Brittany's monochrome canvas and every day she marvels at the brilliance Santana has given, how her delicate hands mould normal tasks into epic adventures in which she stands by her side and watches her unfurl into something more amazing than anyone could have ever imagined. Brittany has seen the anger that begins to bite at the edges of her jaw and the darkness that creeps into her smirk and taints her glow, but she is still all those universes that Brittany saw, once, lurking just out of reach in other dimensions and times where none of this has ever happened. (But they always find each other. Always.)

Movement flickers behind her eyelids and Brittany props her chin upon her folded arms as she watches her rouse groggily from a place far beyond her reach. Sometimes Brittany thinks Santana an adventurer, visiting distant lands in her sleep, conquering enemies and rescuing old allies. She smiles at the first hint of brown from behind those long lashes. "Hi." She says quietly, skating her hands up the unassuming strength of Santana's arms, laying to rest on the hollow of her throat.

"Hi." Santana responds, voice hoarse with sleep. The sun has just begun to dawn, bathing the very edges of their bedroll in a warm glow despite the crisp air.

"Did you sleep well?" Brittany asks, playing with the ends of her dark hair. There have been interruptions these recent nights, surely, the stinking blackness coming and robbing them both of rest, but Santana always finds peace eventually amongst the lands of her Goddess.

The other girl hesitates for a moment. "Yes, just..." (Flashes of shadow and fire and smoke billowing like sheets caught on the line, blood drenching her feet and the sounds of screaming and broken bones following her steps. She pushes it away.) "Nothing. I slept fine."

Brittany looks at her for a long moment, weighing her certainty, but the subtle _don't_ hidden in those eyes deter her. With a sigh, she pushes herself from Santana and goes to crouch over the fire.

It's not that she thinks Santana doesn't trust her. On the contrary, she believes she is trusted more than anyone else on this land. But Santana is a person who keeps all her worries played close to her chest and under her skin, hoarding them and letting them grow until they are monsters needing to be slain. She knows that she forgets what she dreams and perhaps it is for the better—who knows what the darkness shows in its depths? Brittany just wishes she could be that confidante, that one who knows all the secrets and cherishes them as their own. (Perhaps she is bitter that there are still things Santana hides from her, from shame or suspicion alike, but that is for another time and another place.)

A moment later there is a body draped over her back and a gentle kiss planted behind her ear. Santana's body is tiny against her and she fights the smile when long arms wind around her middle and her sharp chin is nestled in the crook of her shoulder, peering over into the flames. "Please smile again." She murmurs quietly, running her hands softly over Brittany's abdomen. "Such a thing should never be hidden."

_ A charmer to her very bones, _Brittany thinks, shifting slightly so Santana can gingerly kiss the corner of her mouth in greeting. The stick she has chosen to cook their meal rolls over and over in her hands, its bark rough and comforting. "You told me you would let me in." Brittany reminds her, forehead pressing against temple. "You said no more lies."

Santana sighs, her chest pressing against her back. "And I keep that... no lies here. Just shadows that a tired mind decides to make to play tricks on its owner. The stress must be getting to me at last."

Brittany lets out an amused sound, twining one of their hands together. "Unsurprising, considering we have the weight of a kingdom resting on our shoulders."

Her companion groans, knocking her head against her strong shoulder. "Stop reminding me, it gets hard enough as it stands." Brittany laughs quietly, twisting her neck to look at the girl nestled behind her.

"You promise?" She asks softly, searching her face for any mistruths.

A nod. "I promise." Santana confirms, peeking up through her eyelashes at her lover. "If we finally get more than a few hours sleep, my mind will be fine again." She smirks. "You like to keep me up at night."

"Not that you complain." Brittany retorts, reaching forward into her pack for something, driving her stick roasting a caught squirrel in the earth. She pulls a scroll from one of the pockets, unfurling it and moving it carefully from the flames when bursts of light emerge from the vellum. The map Sophias had so painstakingly etched into the flesh shimmers just out of reach. Santana's hand reaches over Brittany's shoulder with a gentle touch until the images spark to life.

They study the dancing shapes for a moment, their eyes always drawn to the images of the frost-giants lumbering their way across the frozen wastes, before falling back into Sviar where a tiny replica of themselves sit, entwined, in the thick of the forest. "We should find a real bed." Brittany says quietly, her fingers weaving through the colourful mist. "There is a town, here. Just a few daywalks north. We would still be on the right path, and could spread word of the army. People are rather cut off living this deep."

Santana studies the sleepy little town with the simple buildings and ramshackle appearance. For a split second another image layers the first in which rivers of blood pour from the streets and bodies float in the little lake, putrid with corruption, their faces highlighted in the glow of the fires their burning houses create. She blinks, startled, and it disappears.

"What do you think?" Brittany's voice comes from far away, and the expectant look on her face shows she's asked this question before. "Santana?" Her voice takes on a tinge of concern.

Santana stares at the image a moment more before shaking her head. "Do we truly have to visit?" She asks, careful to keep the tremor from her voice. "We have plenty of food, and I doubt these... people will have beds greater than our bedroll."

"Why would you say that?" The warrior asks with a frown. "It is a village, surely they would have something."

"It takes us too far from our proven path, and we do not need the help of forest _savages_ to defeat an army of equipped men!"

Brittany shifts in her hold to deliver a disapproving glare. "Santana! They are people, just as you or I. Your people call_ us_ savages because of how we live, and this is no different. You should apologize."

"To whom?" Santana's eyebrows raise incredulously. "To them? They certainly can't hear me all the way out here."

But Brittany simply crosses her arms, levelling an unimpressed glare with stiff shoulders. Santana scoffs in disbelief, pulling back to truly look at her in the face. "Are you really going to do this?"

Silence.

"Truly?"

Nothing but the sound of the wind.

"Britt, this is ridiculous. You don't expect me to-"

"Oh, I do." She needs to curb this strange new behaviour before it spreads and causes more trouble than it has. Santana used to have the decency to curse them out in private, sometimes even in a foreign language. Now her opinions—increasingly violent and cruel—paint themselves clear as day to anyone that may see. Brittany's always told her to be true to herself, but this wasn't what she had in mind. Santana audibly grinds her jaw for several moments, but her dislike of having Brittany's ire wins out over her unbalanced feeling of this town.

"Fine." She spreads her arms wide, leaning back and tilting her head to the sky. "Oh, honourable people of the forest, accept this apology for calling you savages and any variants thereof! If these words are not true, let the hammer of the gods strike me down into the earth where I will rot with those forever lost in this forsaken wilderness!" She looks around expectantly for a moment before looking back at Brittany with a sly grin. "Still here. Looks like they accept my apology."

Her companion rolls her eyes, albeit fondly. "Perhaps it was laid on a bit thick."

"Never." They settle back into a comfortable silence, the smell of roasting meat soon invading their senses. Brittany pauses, turning to her curiously.

"Why do you dislike them so much?"

"Who?" Santana mumbles distractedly, eyes firmly pinned on the carcass so close for the taking.

"The forest people." She elaborates, leaning the food slightly out of her reach. Santana pouts.

"Not them in general, just that town." Santana says, picking up her staff and polishing her ruby in an effort to do something with her hands. She tries hard to not catch Brittany's eye, but the task proves difficult.

"Why?"

"Why what?"

Brittany lets out a noise of exasperation. "_Santana._"

Santana scowls, giving up on trying to wipe off an imperfection upon her stones. "You remember Breiðvík and how it felt there?" Brittany nods with a frown. "Like that. It feels wrong and we are still within daywalks of it... maybe it is the people, maybe not. But we shouldn't go."

Here, Brittany is the one that looks down sheepishly. Santana narrows her eyes in suspicion. "What is it?" A mumbled _nothing_ only fuels her fires. "What are you keeping from me?"

The warrior pokes her fingers together, biting her lower lip anxiously. "You, ah, do you remember last night, when you touched me.. _there,_" her hand swirls around her chest area, cheeks pink, "and we woke Sandalio?"

Santana looks at her uncertainly. "How could I forget? I thought you were going to raise the dead."

Brittany pinks further and clears her throat. "Well, I might have, um, managed to... kick... one of our waterskins into the fire?"

The priestess stares at her incredulously for a moment before slowly lowering her head into her waiting hands. How did she not notice that?

"You were pretty occupied." Brittany reminds her—she must have said it aloud.

Santana lets out a long-suffering groan and bangs her head upon the heel of her palms. Of course the universe would so decide to shuffle her towards the one place she hastens not to visit in an attempt to repay her for some kind of twisted karma she had no intention of receiving.

"And this day was going so well before." She grumbles irritably, snatching the well-done squirrel straight from the flames with little regard for her skin, prodding at the steaming flesh until a little leg comes away in her fingers and she eagerly sucks at the crisped fat with a watering mouth. Brittany takes the other, deciding it too much of a task to crack open the bones with her teeth for the meager marrow such a small creature gives. Sandalio drools beside them.

"It was?" Brittany enquires mildly, using Santana's knife in her belt to pry away at the meat and stuffing it in her mouth. She had given the innards to Sandalio, save the liver—that was swallowed raw and slippery. Santana grimaced in disgust, but the warmth of it had given her peace.

The priestess hums in agreement, licking her fingers clean. "Aye. I... I saw my mother in my dream."

She pauses mid-chew, turning to Santana with bright eyes. "Truly?" She grins in excitement. "Was she well? Where was she? Was there anyone with her? Can I meet her soon?" This invisible figure that is such a large part of Santana's culture remains a mystery to Brittany, but she aches to meet her with her entire being.

Santana laughs, waiting until the barrage of questions dies down. Brittany's care for a person she's never even met is cute, even endearing. It makes Santana's chest swell with something unmentionable. "She was well, from what I could tell. Still in that cage... Harald was with her again. Maybe he tries to sway her to his side?"

Brittany nudges their shoulders together, prodding her with a clean bone. "She will never betray you, San. She loves you far too much."

"How do you know this?" Santana asks curiously, shifting her weight to look at her more fully. "You never met her."

"Oh, I know." Brittany says, almost cheerfully, but there is a wistfulness in her tone difficult to ignore. "But a mother's love is stronger than anything else in the world. I knew my mother for all of a few hours and she died to protect me."

Santana's hands wind into Brittany's of her own accord, seeking to deliver comfort though she knows not the wound. "Britt, how horrible, I never knew-"

"It was a long time ago." Brittany interrupts quietly, squeezing their linked hands once. "We learned to accept it, no matter how much it hurt." She gives her a faint smile. "Perhaps another time."

Once again Santana wraps herself around Brittany's frame, seeking this time to erase the ghosts that linger even after all these years. It is impossible to fill the hole a death leaves behind but Brittany relishes her warmth regardless.

* * *

><p><em>Father Ifan loathes the sea. Its roiling depths tossing them about in a wooden casket like dolls, the water that mimics cold sweat as it drenches them in the waves that break over the bow, no protection from the screaming thunder that roars overheard like hawks. It seems fitting for such a night to cast a long shadow—lightning crashes and illuminates his face for but a brief moment and the sea <em>_explodes into frenzy._

_ "How far are we from Kaupang?" The man he's chosen to accompany him is short and squat with no hair to speak of, on his head or otherwise. His eyes are squinted perpetually but he lived for eight years upon the coasts of Sviar and knows their language better than anyone else on this ship. He also possesses a wretched case of seasickness._

_ There is nothing but water on all sides, sloshing violently over the sides of the ship, wrapping its embrace around his ankles and threatening to drag him under the waves. He's heard foolish stories of sirens and sea-monsters alike that pray on those that have no business being upon the water, and though he is a man of faith, they have a point. No one but Lord Jesus should be able to cross the seas without swimming and survive the journey... these heathens have proven themselves deniers of faith in a way that falls down to their very blood, that aches with their transgressions._

_ "Not long." Their captain informs them cheerfully, a sailor through and through who spends his life out on the breaking water. "S'hard to see Nor Veg with them clouds so low over the water, blocks anything in our path 'till we're right up against it."_

_ Father Ifan narrows his eyes against the stinging salt and sighs bitterly, breaking free from them and leaning heavily upon the railing of the ship. The closer they come to Northvegia the more the cross around his neck weighs heavily—it was a gift from his son, the Touched, and look what protection it gave to him. They took his only kin and slaughtered him like an animal, casting his body aside and denying him a proper burial. The day the messenger had come to deliver the news he had not cried, simply sworn vengeance upon his faith to avenge a life so wrongly taken. To his lasting horror, it was said that an infidel had taken it upon herself to perform her unholy rituals at his death, undoubtedly damning his soul to wander the fiery pits of Hell until his father rights what was wronged._

_ Speaking of heathens... the lasting attraction Harald has to the woman trapped in their cage is worrying at best and disgusting at worst. She invades his dreams sometimes, her with her hands of oceans and voice of mountains, breaking apart any sanity he has. How she can so readily deny the scripture when they place it in front of her baffles him—can she even read? He doubts it. The savages of the north lack such a basic skill too. (It is left unsaid that the majority of his people can scarcely afford a loaf of bread let alone a Bible and the affinity in which to use it, but he steadfastly pushes away the inadequacies of Francia, Germania and Brittania alike.)_

_ He must be lost in thought for longer than intended, for out of the gloom rises a jagged peak against the horizon, taller than anything he's ever seen. Its shear face looms over the tiny ship; pointed teeth gnaw at the sky and disappear into the angry cover of the clouds. Whatever has shaped these mountains was wild in its rage, casting great grooves and shattering stone._

_ "Land ho!" Cries the captain in glee, steering into a channel that runs into the mainland. Little villages dot the shores, their tiny boats creaking mournfully in the swollen water, houses lit and puffing __smoke. The earth is flat here, but always do the mountains tower over as their eternal protectors._

_ The further inland they wander, the larger the houses become. Soon enough there are magnificent ships anchored sleepily just off shore, longhouses resting upon the land and shop stalls littering the docks. Though it is night the town does not sleep—people still mill about in their cloaks wrapped tight around their faces, thick boots and furs comforting against the chill wind. Father Ifan shudders in his thin robes, legs soaked with briny water._

_ They make land minutes later, eagerly hopping from their deck and onto solid ground. Though they might appear strange in their attire Kaupang is not a trading town for nothing; they receive nothing but a few curious glances as they light their lanterns, pressing a quiet prayer into their crosses and straightening the collars of their robes. Their captain says he will remain with the ship, stretching out languidly upon deck and popping open a wineskin. Father Ifan curls his lips at his constant drinking, but says nothing._

_ "Head on over through tha' road there, you'll see a huge blue longhouse." He advises, taking a generous swig. "Tha's where Betar Silver-Spear, the jarl, lives. He'll be there so late at night... 'less he's with tha' whores." A vicious cackle before he drowns himself in booze and turns silent._

_ The two priests start their journey further into town. All around them are the hallmarks of a successful village; fresh fish strung up to dry, the chatter of farm animals, various exotic cheeses and meats pegged for high prices. They heard that the savages have only recently started using coin as a method of barter, and many still use the old ways of material trading for food and general goods. A trade gone wrong can result in a cut throat, if one isn't careful._

_ A little boy runs up to him, no older than seven. "Do ya have a piece of bread?" He asks them curiously, his filthy hands tugging upon their robes. "I'm so hungry." His companion goes to strike him and ward him off, but Father Ifan stops him with a glare and offers him a few copper in his stead._

_ "Go buy yourself a loaf of bread, little one." He says with a smile. The boy's eyes light, hoarding the coins close to his chest._

_ "Thank ya!" He says gleefully, running off without a second look._

_ The man to his left looks at him disdainfully. "Why did you do that?" He scoffs, shaking his head. Beggars have no place in healthy society._

_ "When he is grown, he will remember the generosity of God." Father Ifan reveals with a smile, spying a massive building painted in blue in what must be the town square. A red one is opposite, but the chimney does not smoke and all the lights have been extinguished—the one belonging to Betar seems lively and full of warmth. A spark of nerves settle low in his gut but he pushes them away for the sake of his Lord._

_ They enter, eyes travelling about the room. Everywhere is the sign of a feast—food scattered about every table, mead flowing freely, the sound of music almost deafening to the ears. Men swing each other around in happy circles as the women watch on and laugh, sometimes taking each other and doing much of the same. Have them no shame? Their hands boldly touch arms and hips as they lift and throw, raucously slapping rears and backs as they struggle to outperform each other. The same sex touching so carnally... such sin is abominable and holds no place on God's green earth! A man sits upon a larger seat than the rest, clapping along with a horn of mead held loosely, his fiery red hair braided into waves all down the broad length of his back. __**That must be Betar**__, Father Ifan thinks, and allows the nerves to bloom into anger as he sees the one responsible for the death of his son._

_ Though his companion seems hesitant, he himself has no qualms as he strides confidently up to his seat, black robes swishing by his ankles as he tries to catch his attention. "Jarl Betar?" He enquires, frowning as he is ignored. "Jarl Betar!" Still nothing. He growls under his breath, knocking a chair over to where it makes a hollow sound against the floor. "Betar Silver-Spear!"_

_ The music dies out and it leaves an eerie silence in its wake—the man, intimidating in size, slides his eyes over and studies him thoroughly through a narrowed gaze. Sitting down it was obscured just how much larger he is, but as he raises to his feet the Father finds himself dwarfed under that stare._

_ "And who are you to interrupt our festivities?" He asks calmly, crossing his muscular arms over his broad chest. From this vantage point his burly form is reminiscent of a bear protecting its young._

_ "We are but convoys sent on the word of Lord Harald." His companion interrupts, chin lifting defiantly. Betar's eyebrows raise high on his forehead, and laughter ripples about the room. (To the far left sits a man of fairest skin and blackest robes, watching them with eyes so light they are almost colourless. There is a darkness about him that seethes over his skin and unsettles Father Ifan to his very bones, aggravated only when he smiles in his direction; sharp and full of knives.)_

_ "It is __**Lord**__ Harald now?" Betar asks, taking a swallow from his drinking horn. "Does __**Rollo**__ himself like to play in titles? He was always so easily swayed by pretty things."_

_ Father Ifan growls in irritation, raking one hand through his short hair. "We come not to trade insults but offer instead a bargain. "_

_ His attention is caught, and he finds himself under the full weight of those dark green eyes, curiously appraising his value. (Did he do this to Samuel before he was gutted?) His companion continues._

_ "Lord Harald requires a place to land port for his armies, and Kaupang is one of the only __towns big enough to sustain him. If you were to allow him to do so, you have his word that Kaupang would remain untouched in the sieges to come."_

_ Betar scoffs, the sound bubbly as he swallows his mouthful. "His word, hm? What does a word mean to me? He has already proven his words hold no weight when he scorned our people and turned instead to the fat men of Francia." A chorus of stubborn agreements—it seems Rollo has not earned many friends in this town._

_ "But you would earn favour of a king!" The bald priest argues, stepping forward slightly. "How many of your brethren can say that?"_

_ Laughter, this time; men and women alike chuckle in disbelief and return to their meals, the festivities slowly resuming the force they used to be. But Betar's eyes are hard and unkind as he stares them down, one of his hands floating to the axe by his side. "Haraldr is the closest thing we need to a king, milkdrinker."_

_ "Your king is no king, just a heathen pretender! He holds not the weight of God behind him."_

_ Something dawns upon Betar's face then, a realization that bodes poorly for the missionaries. "Is this what it is about, then? An attempt to sway us to your side while you piss on the greatness of our gods and claim them as your whores?" He moves in close, shoving him back a few paces until he bumps back into Father Ifan. "Our gods have seen us through battles and peace alike. And yours? What has yours done? My people __**spit**__ on your god as we take your things, rape your women, and burn your villages. You will find no help here."_

_ Father Ifan wisely turns to leave despite the disgust bubbling inside of him, but his ally thinks not as clearly. His voice is frenzied as it rings out over the din, spittle flaking from his lips and cheeks tinging so red he looks mad. "We will come and we will be the ones that burn your towns and take your women as our whores!" He cries, unaware of Betar slowly turning once more to face him. "We will take this savage land as our own and turn these disgusting excuses of people into God-fearing citizens, murdering the memory of their ancestors and leaving nothing but the Light in our wake! And we will __**laugh**__ as Jesus, our Lord Saviour, takes your precious Odin and casts him into the flames of Hell where he will burn for all eternity for being a pretender and a false prophet! We will__**—**__" He gurgles as a blade finds its home in his throat, eyes going wide and floating upwards to lock with the jarl's. Blood spurts from his ravaged neck and mouth alike as Betar continues sawing brutally through his tendons and cartilage until, with a vicious crack, his spine comes away and Betar holds his gaping head in his left hand._

_ Men take Father Ifan and force him to the ground where the wooden floor digs hard into his cheek; boots appear in his vision and a moment later Betar's face, red and slick with sprayed blood, appears. "Your god has no place in these lands." He vows, deadly quiet. "And your lord will find no home here."_

_ With the severed head making its way back to Harald as an ominous example, Kaupang prepares for war._

* * *

><p><strong>October 13th, 912<strong>

Santana wakes with a start, wiping the imaginary blood from her face. All around her she feels the smoke from Kaupang's fires, the roar of the crowd as Betar swore death upon their enemies. Her lips lift up into a smile.

"It is done." She mumbles into Brittany's skin, looking up when the girl beneath her shifts groggily and mutters a slow hum of confusion. "Your father joins the battle."

Too tired to offer a proper response, Brittany grunts and loosely tangles her fingers in Santana's dark hair. "'Bout time." She whispers hoarsely, letting her head fall back to the ground. "Ne'er though he get his head outta his rear..." Her words trail off, dissolving into snores. Santana laughs quietly, putting her head upon Brittany's chest and letting the reassuring thump of her heartbeat lure her into dreamless sleep.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: I'm sorry this took so long, but I was unmotivated for a long time before the season finale aired and I was suddenly freed.

Freedom has never felt so sweet.

Thank you to LeMasquerade, as always, for her tireless beta work despite the fact that I've been more sporadic than usual lately and reading through things that were written at four on the morning, asleep except for a heaping dose of caffeine. We've passed the halfway point of this story now, but it's far from over. As per usual, enjoy!

* * *

><p>Chapter 17<p>

**this invasion makes me feel**

**worthless, hopeless, sick**

**October 16****th****, 912**

They arrive three days later.

Santana has gone sullen and silent, haunted by her dreams that follow her into reality. She feels watched, almost, a million empty eyes staring through her from the trees and the earth and even the flames that flicker on her fingertips. Brittany closes them all away with her embrace but she cannot be held all the time; she needs to be strong for her too, for the warrior that risks everything she's ever built to give her affection she's not sure she deserves. So, Santana swallows it down, averting her eyes from the gleam in the dark, and trudges onwards.

She knows it's a bad idea, this place, but with nothing other than a misplaced sense of dread, there is no dissuading Brittany.

The first warning sign comes with the silence.

At mid-morning, it should be bustling (as much as one little village bustles) with life; traders and hunters and farmers, merchants selling their wares and women tending to the cattle, feeding their wet garments to the washing line before winter's chill makes it impossible. It's already so much colder this far up north, almost halfway through Sviar. But instead there is nothing... feeble wisps of smoke puff from the tiny chimneys and perhaps a stray dog wanders through the dirt streets, but it is utterly silent. (Santana sees flashes, pictures imposed over one another of people dying and screaming and burning. She shakes it away so hard her brain threatens to come loose.)

Brittany cautiously peers with her shaded eyes, planting her spear upon the ground firmly with her right hand. "Where are all the people?" She murmurs quietly, taking a few steps further in; Santana has no choice but to follow. The answer to her question is given when they emerge into the town square.

Funeral pyres stretch taller than their heads. Limbs poking through the crudely constructed slats, a sightless eye watching them in a lifeless face. They burn fiercely and carry their greasy smoke with them up into the ether until all they can smell is stinking rot and charred flesh. Santana gags and turns away while Brittany swallows hard as she counts the four pyres.

(The priestess sees the town at night, a bloody trail as a body is dragged upon the ground and an unearthly cackling- no, _no, make it stop!_)

There is a flicker of movement upon the horizon and Brittany's eyes train upon it automatically, squinting in an attempt to see through the smoke. Is there somebody there? She looks for Sandalio and the telltale prick of his ears but he is absent from her side, undoubtedly gone to erase the acrid stench in his nose; without him she chooses to step forward, cautious, further into the village. So trained upon the mystery in front of her, she misses what happens behind.

"If ya dun want ta get stuck, ya stay right there, ya hear?" Cold metal is pressed against Brittany's neck and she tenses, her knuckles turning white on her spear. Distantly she hears Santana suck in a startled breath and she wonders absently why Sandalio hadn't warned them.

_Leave them in peace._ She warns her companion, slowly dropping her spear to the ground and raising her hands when she pivots on her foot.

"We mean no harm." She says calmly to an attempt to stamp out the tremor in her voice. "We come from Kaupang. I am Bretagne Piersson, daughter of Betar Silver-Spear." The holder of the weapon - a man, she sees, old with white hair - raises his eyebrows in surprise and peers suspiciously at her from down the length of his tool.

"Yuh? Tha' shield-maiden? I dun believe it none."

_Show him_. Santana whispers to her, and even from there she can sense the vicious smirk in her words. She debates for a moment, hands clenching in the air, but they really do need supplies. Brittany sighs before lashing out, deflecting the shaft of his weapon with her forearm and delivering a brutal punch to his throat. He reels back in alarm and she reverses the weapon on him until she holds the point to the choking man, planting one foot on his sternum and waving it menacingly over his face.

"Sorry about that." She smiles sweetly, patting his cheek with the metal point. "Had to be done, you know? It's distasteful when somebody waves their spear in my face."

She wants to revel in her victory, but Santana's nervous tone wipes the smile straight from her face. "Britt?" Santana gulps as the angry villagers skulk from their hiding places with crude weapons clutched in their grasp, forming a line and blocking their path. They have the look of people haunted, gaunt faces and dark rings around their eyes, their shoulders weighed down by grief. Brittany presses the point of the man's spear more firmly against his throat as a warning.

"We want no trouble." She calls out kindly, a stark contrast to her menacing stance. "Just a water-skin and maybe a hot meal, then we will be on our merry way."

One man steps forward, slight and haggard with narrowed eyes. Santana watches how his shadow warps and retracts back to normal before anything is noticed.

_Something very wrong is happening here, Britt._

"Who are you?" He asks, holding up a hand when a few less welcoming villagers continue to advance with their pointy looking tools.

"I am Bretagne Piersson of Kaupang, and this is my companion, Santana Lopez of Botaya."

They study her sandy skin like an anomaly; so far up north, it is unlikely they've ever seen one of her complexion before. (She feels like an animal trapped and taunted.)

One of them scoffs. "What kind of place is Botaya?"

"Over the sea." Santana responds tartly, relishing in their surprise of her comprehension. "In Iberia. I doubt any of you would have had the fortune of ever visiting such a place."

Brittany tries to pin her with a glare, but she studiously looks away.

"Are you a priestess?" A little boy asks warily. "You have no markings."

She touches her forehead in surprise and notes that no ochre comes away. "It wore off in the last lake, child. I have no more paste to use." In an effort to prove otherwise she lets flame spiral to life upon her palm—the child shrieks in delight despite his mother pulling him behind her skirts. "But I am, yes. So was my mother, and her mother before her."

He accepts that with a wondrous nod, but the others are more difficult to convince.

"How do we know either of you are pure?"

Brittany and Santana share a confused glance.

"Pure?" The warrior ventures cautiously, scratching the back of her neck. The villagers mutter within themselves in low voices of all differing opinions, urging their leader to resist or accept or destroy. He sighs.

"There has been a sickness here... being pure means that you are of sound health."

"A sickness?" A woman cries in fury. "You call this a _sickness_? It's claimed both of my boys and one of my girls in four days! And then... and then the thing _took_ them from the _ground__—_"

(Santana smells death and fresh rot mixed with the scent of the earth.)

"—and did something terrible with them. This isn't a _sickness, _this is a plague!" She's wrapped up in the arms of a man, sobbing, and led away from the masses. Brittany swallows nervously and shifts closer to her companion.

Their leader rubs his eyes for a moment before looking to them with a serious gaze. In truth he is younger than they anticipated, responsibility heaped upon his shoulders well before his years. "A great shadow rose from the forests and bore with it a deep sickness," said the man, "one that kills our people and raises them again after their final breath. We try to fight it, but this is well beyond the mortal realm."

_Could you offer them your aid?_ Brittany asks Santana, glancing to her. She looks troubled, face creased in an effort to remember something her mind has determined she forget. _You are both a healer and a priestess, right?_

She remains silent for a few moments, staring sightlessly at her charms. _I... we should leave. I can do nothing for them. _

_Are you certain?_

Santana becomes agitated, then, looking to Brittany with her teeth bared in a frustrated grimace. _No. Perhaps I can. But do we truly want to risk catching this sickness and dying along with them? We have a purpose that we need to complete. _

_ Forgive me, but... I don't think this is a plague of the body._

They study each other for a moment but Santana has never been good at denying Brittany what she wants; she sighs after a moment and turns to the wary villagers with a defeated expression. "If you allow us to rest here for a day or so, I can see if I can help. I make no promises, but perhaps this is a matter of the spirit as much as the body."

"Like wha'? A curse?" Asks the old man, his voice wheezing.

Santana shrugs. "Maybe. Take me to them."

* * *

><p>The smell hits them first. As soon as they step foot into the little longhouse doubling as a sick hall, the stench of excrement and decay sets in. A few women shuffle about trying to tend to those still awake, their eyes glazed with fever; those sleeping dream of tortured things, crying out in strangled voices to the monsters in their head. Several have extremities that have turned black and festering.<p>

"Rot." Santana mutters to herself, careful not to touch the afflicted as she sweeps past. Brittany lingers at the doorway with a hand over her nose, eyes narrowed to see into the smoky room. She's graced many a battlefield where men piss themselves as they die (not a thing for the sagas) and it mixes with their spilt blood, but their wounds are fresh and free of disease. This decay that lingers in the air is cloying and brings with it dark winds. Demons are at work here.

Santana kneels down at the bedside of a young man, gingerly sponging the sweat from his face with the corner of his thin blanket. Despite the bleakness of the situation, it warms Brittany's heart to see how kind she is with those in suffering. It brings out a side in her that is softer, less jagged—her words lose their bite. Sometimes Brittany wonders what it is Santana is so afraid of that it forces her to hide away into this angry, bristling shell and stay there for as long as it takes to stay alone. (That's no way to live.) If she could, she'd coax _her _Santana out where everybody could see; the mischievous and cunning woman who still manages to be bashful when taken by surprise. The one she now knows she's fallen deeply in love with.

She's not afraid of love, not when she spent so long thinking she'd never get to experience the joy that it brings. She's ready to embrace it with both arms, but Santana isn't. So she waits.

(But every part of her wishes to sing it out, to shove it in the faces of those who never believed in her. Oh, if only her father could see her now!)

Brittany smiles softly and pulls her attention back to her lover, now persuading the ailing man to drink from a nearby waterskin.

"How long have you been sick?" She asks him, smoothing his sweaty hair from his forehead carefully. He looks at her blankly for a few moments, swallowing briefly as the liquid trickles down his throat.

"My'be... two days? Three? C'nt tell, sleeping." He shifts on his bedroll and Santana catches the smell of urine that wafts from him as his clothes rustle.

"Have they been changing you?" She asks with a frown, looking over the others. Those not concealed with blankets are in similar states of disarray, wallowing in their own filth as they sob and sweat out their demons.

_No wonder they've fallen so ill._ She reflects darkly. _I'll have to drown myself to be rid of this stench._

"N't moved in l'ng time." He rasps out, pitifully reaching for more water. Santana obliges, holding up his head as he mouths weakly at the spout. "N'food."

"Not even herbs?"

"One... yellow. L'il flowers. Bitter."

With a nagging feeling biting at the edge of her mind, Santana rustles about in her medicine horn for a moment as she searches through all the herbs Quinn has given her.

"This one?" She asks, holding up a inconspicuous little plant between her fingers. From afar, Brittany recognizes it as the one she identified a few nights prior and cringes in sympathy.

"Tha' one." The man affirms in a mumble. Santana nearly growls her frustration and stands up abruptly, peering at the few haggard woman who tend to the sick.

"Which one of you idiots gave them senna?" She yells, gathering the attention of the room. It falls silent save for the moans of the afflicted but no one deigns to answer; she bristles and repeats herself, louder this time and with a flare of white flame to her words. In the end, a young woman slinks forth—no older than sixteen winters. Santana sets her jaw at her pleading expression.

"Forgive me, priestess, the healer fell ill and died within a few nights a-and she had no apprentices. They appointed me because I had talked with her once or twice."

Santana almost rubs her eyes, recoiling at the last second as she remembers exactly what's she's been touching. Her anger bubbles violently under the surface at the stupidity before her.

"Do you know what this is?" She hisses quietly, almost calmly; her eyes betray her.

The girl before her shakes her head nervously. "W-we thought it was—"

"It is a plant that makes their bowels explode outwards in a magnificent rush of putrid excrement. Do you want to know why this place reeks of shit? Because you are feeding them something that makes it so! The filth they sit in does nothing for their health... in fact, it _hinders_ it. Tell me, what in the Goddess's name possessed you to feed them something you knew nothing about?"

Cowering now, the object of her wrath shakes her head and covers her mouth with her hand, obviously fighting the urge to cry. Santana feels an odd sort of satisfaction a moment before Brittany's arm slips around her waist and the weight of her disappointment hang heavily upon her shoulders.

"That was cruel of you, San." She murmurs into her ear, squeezing her hip firmly in reprimand. Santana rolls her eyes but leans into her strong body regardless, oblivious to the the world and the girl that stares at them as Brittany smiles and tenderly brushes a strand of dark hair behind her ear. Santana smiles back, lost, as her companion turns to the front.

"Sorry about that, Santana just really cares about people."

(She coughs into her sleeve to hide her laugh which earns her a hip-bump, yet the corners of Brittany's eyes crinkle into a subdued smile she knows all too well; Santana runs her fingers down the cotton of her warrior's tunic, squeezing her hand briefly. It warms them both.)

"I, uh—"

"No need to explain! Just stop feeding them that gross plant and a big problem should be solved, right?" Brittany says cheerfully, turning to Santana for guidance.

"What? I— oh, yes. Well... the sickness will still be raging, but fewer people should fall ill." She crouches down to the man again, taking his head in the cradle of her palm and sweeping his hair back behind his ears the best she can. "Clean them up enough and maybe even the smell will go away. I believe you—"

She stops abruptly as something sticky leaks onto her fingers from his right ear. Cold, it sends chills pricking at the back of her neck as she draws her hand away and it comes back black.

(Bile gathers at the back of her throat, but it's far too obvious to be anything other than what she feared.)

"Why did nobody tell me this was happening?" She asks, deathly quiet, hand still covered with the liquid that should have warmed to her body heat by now. "Did you think this was unimportant?"

"We—"

"He is _leaking corruption _from his _ears! Who _thought this was something they could erase when they accepted my help?" Her heart pounds furiously in her chest and Brittany winces from the phantom discomfort, shifting nervously from one foot to the other as Santana waves her glowing hands in the air. "This is no plague, this is—"

She roars when somebody clasps a hand over her mouth and hauls her from the room; she kicks and yells but their body is solid and so much stronger. The scent of spearmint and sweat alerts her to who it is but it does little to tamper her fury, being handled like a limp toy through the town as Brittany grunts against her anger. Once or twice her palms flicker to life, singeing the tips of her blond braid, but nothing deters her until they reach the edge of the forest and Brittany unceremoniously dumps her upon the ground. Santana attempts to rise, but finds the air knocked from her chest as her companion settles herself firmly on her abdomen.

"What are you doing?" Santana snarls, finding it difficult to sound furious when her lungs are being crushed under Brittany's surprisingly heavy weight. She meets blue eyes that look down at her calmly, albeit with worry.

"_We_ are going to stay here until you calm down and stop scaring the poor villagers half to death with your fire. After that, _we_ will talk and figure out what _we_ are going to do with this."

Santana struggles and curses for what seems to be an eternity, all the while never being able to escape that blue, blue gaze. Her eyes remind her of a sea caught in the midst of a storm as they stare down at her, murky and troubled. It pains her that she is the cause of such strife, but her pride refuses to bend until she is exhausted under Brittany's (rather simplistic, rather effective) hold and she collapses back onto the frosting grass.

"Are you done?" Brittany asks quietly, perching her arms upon her knees and peering down at her warily. Santana turns her head to the side and mutters into the earth; long fingers grasp her chin and she feels like a scolded child as she's tugged back until she has to look into her companion's eyes once again. She swallows at the unwavering comfort she finds in them.

"I said, are you done?" She mutters a quiet _yes_ and Brittany lifts herself from her chest, lying down beside her instead. They stay in silence for a few moments and Santana wishes the wind was her tongue instead, speaking in whispers of some long-forgotten language that Brittany would never understand.

_What was that?_ Brittany asks her, cushioning her head in her folded arms and looking to her face for answers. Sandalio quietly worms his way between them and she takes strength from the solid weight pressing against her side.

Santana chews on her lip for a moment as she contemplates her answer. She could say she doesn't know, which is true but ultimately inconclusive... she could say it was nothing, which would disappoint Brittany and throw them into yet another silence-fight. Or... she could do what she promised she'd do weeks ago and tell the whole truth. It's a terrifying thought, laying herself out to be judged, but she's growing tired of hiding all these things from the one person who has never turned her away. She takes a deep breath, despite it being unneeded.

_I... got scared._ She admits, turning to face Brittany. Though their eyes refuse to meet, the gesture is enough. _The fact that it is here, so far from home... Styrr's reach is so much greater than I first thought. It is dangerous._

_Do you think we should leave?_

_Yes, but not now. Night falls and we have few supplies to last us the trip to Finnmork. _

Brittany nods thoughtfully, dusting her fingers along Santana's cheekbone. _I trust your judgement. Do we tell them about... your involvement?_

Despite herself, Santana can feel the worry radiating from Brittany and draws her close, pulling her over Sandalio's furry form and cradling her like one would an oversized child. _I promise you, I have no sickness in me. Whatever has taken their people will not take me as well. _

A wry smile twists pale lips as Brittany realizes that Santana can read her better than herself; it's been that way for the past year, a translator to a world that has long since lost the text for her kind.

_How do you know?_ She asks, reaching over her shoulder to touch the charms upon her staff, her thumb rubbing at the dark ooze that made its way onto her jewels in the commotion.

_Because I've you, and you've me._ She reveals with a smile. _Remember how I like to make things complicated? Now it appears to be your turn._

They lay in the growing shadow, Brittany's head burrowed into Santana's chest, shivering into the damp grass. Santana strokes the burnt ends of Brittany's hair affectionately as she stares out into the deep forest. She has to confront Styrr. It's become an inevitability, something that looms over the hidden horizon. His presence is felt upon the winds though he is miles away; she tastes him in the food she eats and mead she drinks. It leaves a bitter, lingering taste that she is surprised Brittany never comments on—late at night when they curl up close and Brittany smiles like she has a secret, close to her heart. It makes Santana curious, but she won't push, not when Brittany's been so patient in return.

"Are you ready to go back?" Brittany asks quietly, fiddling with the clasp on Santana's cloak. Over time the feathers have become ragged and worn, but they have never lost their luster. Sometimes in the firelight she looks entirely beyond human.

Santana sighs, nodding once and pulling herself to her feet. She has not a clue what to tell them, that no herb can soothe their tainted souls, no poultice to calm their festering wounds.

"Can you get rid of it?" Brittany enquires curiously, picking her staff back up for her. Santana starts for a moment before remembering their bond.

"Perhaps." She muses quietly, accepting her staff with a grateful smile. "But... it would require some one with a power far greater than mine. I am of no use to them, not now."

Brittany pouts, but accepts this, linking their smallest fingers together as they walk back to the village. People stare at them as they pass; word of Santana's fit has obviously spread quicker than the plague they are afflicted with. Santana bristles under their eyes, glaring at each and every one until they shrink back into their little homes.

_Cowards_, she hisses internally, ignoring the fact they act much as the people in Botaya would.

Brittany tugs her close, murmuring a _let me talk to them_ into her ear. In normal circumstances allowing her companion to converse with others for a length period of time would result in either mass confusion or a misunderstanding (maybe both), but the way she is being held so protectively clouds her reasonable judgement. She finds herself nodding along instead as the now ominous longhouse rears into view once again.

Inside, it's hard to believe she didn't detect the darkness as soon as she walked in. It is everywhere; crawling along the crevices of the walls, seeping into the floorboard from the ceiling, dribbling from the mouths of the sick. She grimaces as she steps into a little puddle of it.

Brittany smiles cheerfully at the two they were previously conversing with, ignoring their wary looks in that charming (and sometimes obtuse) way that she can. "Sorry about that," she dives right in, plastering Santana to her side, "my friend here had a bad experience with it before, and now she can get a bit sensitive about it."

_Sensitive?_ She scowls upwards, but is blissfully ignored.

The girl swallows and accepts the explanation without question, but wrings her hands regardless. Brittany looks at her expectantly until she cracks.

"So what _is _it?" She asks desperately. "Is it an illness? A curse? Another being?"

Here Brittany stalls, the smile slipping off her face momentarily as her brain wheels for viable identification. She's always been horrible at lying, Betar catching her as soon as she'd try, and her mouth opens once or twice before she can cough out something resembling words.

"They... uh... it..."

Santana elbows her hard in her side and she jumps. "Hel!" She blurts out, earning startled looks from all the occupants in the room. "Yes, uh, this is the work of Hel!" Upon realizing that they haven't shot her down, she begins to elaborate. "Hel sent the demons from her hall to you in retaliation for something. Herbs and potions are no match for this kind of sickness."

A ripple of unease spreads through the hall, and belatedly, Brittany sees that attributing their strife to a powerful god might not be the best plan.

"In fact, Santana's been in contact with them before. Haven't you, San?"

Wide, accusing eyes turn to her.

_Hel? I know nothing about Hel! Brittany, what are you doing?_

Her companion glares at her silence, taking it as her time to jab her with a (much more pointy) elbow. _They need a cause to take away the unknown. Just spin some magic about souls or something, whatever it is you mystics do._

At their desperate faces, Santana swallows nervously. "Yes, ah, I have. Twice, actually."

_No need to be dramatic._

Discretely, Santana punches her in the thigh.

Hands grasp Santana's sleeve and she looks down at the little boy clinging tearfully to her. "Are the demons gonna get me too? I don' wanna die! I wanna go to Valhalla!"

Her jaw works soundlessly for a moment before crouching down to him. "These demons... they are strong. I cannot stop them. But, perhaps we can appease them?" She looks around the room, biting her bottom lip nervously. "Have you done anything to anger her recently?"

Rippling whispers spread out from around the room. The villagers mutter between themselves, jostling and murmuring, casting suspicious glances upon their neighbours. In the silence a raven croaks, perching upon the rafters. Two sets of beady eyes watch them curiously (they have a human intelligence within them, a thought and a memory).

_Hel is the ruler of Helheim, Santana. _Brittany informs her hurriedly while the others are distracted. _She receives those who die of sickness or age. Those that die here travel to her hall. _

_You want me to tell them that a vengeful goddess is reaping the souls of their people out of spite?_ She asks in confusion, stepping away from a man who had rolled towards her foot, his body riddled with black rot. The tip of his nose falls off into his limp hand when he bumps it.

_It is close enough to the truth, is it not?_

Unable to argue with that, Santana returns her attention to the present world, where a boy of no older than fifteen is pushed into her view. All around her the villagers grumble angrily with their eyes like dark coals, drilling into his back until he buckles and hunches under their anger.

"Yes?" She asks, arching an eyebrow. He stutters for a few moments, wringing his hands together anxiously as he mutters something so low she can't hear.

"Speak up, boy." It comes out as more of a snap than intended but he flinches back regardless, eyes cast to the ground.

"I... I tried seiðr to heal my little brother a moon ago. His mind had been taken in the night and he was screaming and crying... nothing we did ever stopped it. It would go on for days until he grew too hoarse to shout."

Santana curiously lets her mind float to him, wrapping him in her embrace. She feels no inherent glow of magic, no matter how malicious, in his heart. Just a boy dabbling in arts that hold no love for him.

"Did it work?" Brittany enquires, tilting her head to the side in concentration.

His lip trembles. "No. H-he died days before the sickness started."

_Superstitions._ Santana snarks internally, but wonders secretly. Could his attempt have drawn Styrr's attention? It's possible. She never truly started having these decimating nightmares before he introduced her to the darkness and the horrors that it brings—such an unshielded mind would be easy fodder for a volatile cannon. She licks her lips and tastes its influence on the air once again, bloated on the blood of its victims.

She tries for a sympathetic smile, but her mind is too captured in possibilities to pull it off. Yes, yes... it seems reasonable now.

"Did you burn his body?"

Another wave of whispering. The boy scratches uncomfortably at the back of his neck and stares anywhere but her, his skin staining a deep red.

"No. We buried him with his things."

Perhaps, if she could see...

"Where is it? May I look?" She asks, eager to be of help. She frowns at his stricken expression; that gut feeling begins anew, the sense of something so terribly _wrong_ residing in one place. "What? Surely the rot is manageable, I've seen my fair share of corpses over the years."

But the boy wipes at his eyes, scuffing his foot on the floor. "We don't have it."

Santana's brow knits in confusion. "What do you mean? A corpse stays where you put it."

"Not these ones." One of the villagers says. "When we put them down, they get right back up again. You can hear the draugar moan in the night."

The two companions share looks of alarm, images of Sam and his broken body flashing through their minds. Brittany's hands tighten so painfully on her spear she thinks she's cracked a knuckle in her discomfort. "How many?" She asks in a whisper, fearful of the response.

"Too many. We had to start burning to make it stop... but even then, it never does."

* * *

><p>Long after the village falls into an uneasy slumber, Santana remains awake. She touches the burnt ends of Brittany's hair with her fingers, fiddling with the dry strands, listening idly to the mournful howl of the angry rain outside. It batters the roof and from the corner of the room comes the infernal sound of raindrops splattering against the ground, a dull drone amplified by her restlessness. In the distant quiet of the night, a draugr moans.<p>

They had been given food and shelter amidst grim faces, the townsfolk too busy wallowing in (what they believe to be) their death sentence to offer real resistance. She sees Brittany's guilt at swallowing such a lie, but truly, how far from the truth is it? Whatever Hel might be, it sounds despairing enough to match their plight.

Oh, how she wishes she could fix them.

(She tries to ignore the voice in her head screaming _you can, you can!_)

Despite her contempt towards the boy dabbling in things far beyond his control, Santana's heart pangs uncomfortably at the hollowed faces of the little children who have lost their parents, the elders who have had all living kin, generations of hardship and joy, taken from them. Even now, the flame in the hearth dims and flickers with the overreaching presence she feels crawling around her skin. Brittany feels it too, somehow, their connection allowing her a phantom glimpse into a world Santana wishes she could leave behind.

She rubs thoughtfully at the charms upon her staff. They have become riddled with the same darkness that haunts her, veins spreading out from their brilliance and tainting their luster. Only the ruby remains untainted, unblemished in Styrr's quest for power. Santana bristles with a misplaced sense of anger at his boldness.

How dare he threaten them.

Her dare he threaten _her_.

And... she looks to Brittany. The closer the darkness creeps, the sooner it could potentially sink its claws into the one thing she holds so dear. Though Brittany's soul is so bright and pure, no one can resist such a siren song forever.

With that sobering thought in mind, she pushes herself from the bed. Her wolfskin robe is cold as she shrugs it on, tying the laces as tight as they will go and pulling her raven hood over her head. Sandalio's eyes are two pinpricks in the gloom that watch her every move with utmost attention, ready to strike at any notion of danger. She scratches fondly behind his ears before slipping out of the room, ignoring his feeble whine for her to return.

The rain is a bitter sheet that coats her in freezing spray as soon as she steps away from the safety of the longhouse. She scowls and draws her cloak tighter about herself, letting the light of her staff lead the way as she crosses quickly through the streets. The air is taut with anticipation, bloated, awaiting the catalyst to the unknown.

_This is absurd, _she thinks to herself, but carries on regardless, dodging nameless shadows and curious eyes. By the time she reaches her destination she is glad for the suffocating warmth of the sick hall, despite the powerful stench of rot and excrement that meets her nose. They took her advice, but it will take days to repair the damage done to their bowels—by which time, half of them will have died from their affliction. She frowns and closes the eyes of a woman who has already lost her battle.

She wonders if this was a good idea, alone with nothing but the dying and the darkness. Her fingers clench hard on the grip of her staff and she swallows nervously, sweeping her eyes about the room, taking a few steps further inside. The same boy from before is still here, rolling about in the dirt, crying out in agony. Santana kneels down to him, tenderly tucking a few strands of damp hair behind his ear.

"Tell me what you need." She soothes, pressing a water-skin to his lips and forcing him to take a small sip. Earlier in the year she had uprooted mandrakes from the unyielding soil and ground their roots down to a powder, mixing it now with the centaur's wine (given to her in secret from Sophias, as their tribe was forbidden the temptation) to produce a sharp liquid capable of taking away death's insistent sting. His eyes glaze over as his hand finds her knee, squeezing as best his muddled mind can allow.

"Make it go away," he mumbles drowsily, head lolling to one side as the medicine takes him to a different place.

(All Santana can see is Brittany in his place, rot spattered over her body like a paintbrush thrown in anger and lacking aesthetics.)

She clenches her jaw and stands up, drawing her shoulders back and making herself as imposing as her stature can allow. Her staff thumps heavily against the ground until it picks up an insistent beat that carries itself far louder than its weight should permit.

"I can hear you, Styrr." She growls, eyes sweeping again about the room. "No use hiding from me, not now. Your taint is covering this place like a curse."

Whatever flames that burned in the space extinguish with a low hiss; somehow she can still see in the blackness, her ruby casting a violent red glow upon the walls and ceiling that dance in time to her steady heartbeat. A deeper darkness gathers at the other end of the room, drawing itself together from a misshapen lump that seethes upon the floor into a silhouette of a man. Beside him, a smaller figure—it hunches awkwardly on all fours and cackles manically with vocal chords that have been stripped of all softness. She grimaces at its malicious smile.

**Look at you, priestess, so grown up.** He coos to her with that taunting smile and she bristles, bringing her staff down with such force that a plate upon a nearby table rattles. **Saving every little village that you cross... how noble.**

"If you kept your hands where they belonged, there would be no need for a saviour." She snaps back, the muscles of her shoulders clenching. She feels Brittany stirring uneasily in her sleep, but Santana reaches into her dreams and pulls her back under into her brightly lit fantasies.

**Ah, but my Master needs to feed, and they are such easy prey.** He studies her, leaving billowing clouds of smoke in his wake. **A shame, he _does_ so like a challenge.**

Something brushes her hand and she jerks back with a tiny cry. The little creature growls harshly and retreats back to his master's side—a faint impression of claws have left themselves upon the back of her hand.

"What will it take for you to leave them alone?"

Styrr laughs, a breathless sound. **Are you offering a substitute for their pathetic lives? How naive of you, but... maybe. What would it be? That mutt of yours? Your sailor friend? Both, perhaps? Animals taste blander than he likes, but he could make an exception. **

A clap of brilliant light blooms from her, as white as her rage. "You will not touch them!" She shouts furiously, taking a few steps forward. The cold assaults her but the flames that lick at her fingers keep it at bay until her eyes cast the defining glow.

The shadow of a man seems unfazed. **Not them, then. Who else? Perhaps that centaur? Not even the gift of immortality makes her immune.**

Santana sneers at his suggestion. "Sophias would never succumb to you."

**Perhaps not.** He concedes thoughtfully. **Such age grants her powerful knowledge. **A sudden grin graces his face then. **But I know who my Master would like.**

He pushes images of blonde hair and blue, blue eyes into her mind until she is bombarded by all sides with everything Brittany is and ever will be. She is hyper aware of her slumbering not even a few hundred yards from where they stand now, oblivious to the danger that lurks just outside her dreams.

**Such a pretty thing, is she not? So resilient. So innocent.**

Santana sees white and red and there is a hole in the wall now where she throws a fireball through it; it smoulders around the edges and there is a delayed pain reaction to the burning in her palm but she refuses to extinguish the light, not when he looks so positively _intrigued_ by the possibility of owning Brittany as a toy to use at his whim.

_Like Samuel, _her mind whispers, and she makes her choice.

She knows Styrr will never listen to her, so she throws her thoughts outwards, further than him. She prods at the force that drives him, the fear in the night and the frost on the winds. It stirs at her insistence and the world loses its light.

C_ome here, you monster, come to me. _She taunts it, grinning with a sort of manic desperation. _Let me drown you out forever._

It streams in all directions, slithering from the mouths of the afflicted with a soft groan. They choke and gag as their bodies are rid of their corruption, pouring from their open mouths in billowing smoke; they shake and tremble upon the floor, the whites of their eyes shining dully in terror. It converges around her and snakes up the folds of her robe, freezing her to the bone.

Distantly, Styrr inhales in surprise, but Santana hears nothing but the screaming in her ears.

There is a low chuckle, coming from all places at once, and then it sinks through her clothing and straight into her skin.

Santana screeches and drops to her knees as her blood turns to darkness, slamming her open palms against the dirt until her bones moan in disjointed agony with the rest of her. Like all the times she's brushed too close, she feels its endless weight pressing down upon her arched back, smothering, seeking and reaching for the edges of her soul. She barely fights it off, collapsing to her side and allowing her body to violently retch as it so desperately wants. It spews from her and doesn't stop until she is breathless, weeping, clutching at her head as it crawls around and finds a home in her skin. There's too much of it, too much darkness, too much noise... Santana cries out as it spears its way into her consciousness; somewhere in the dark of the night, Brittany yells in her sleep.

**Mine.** It commands so forcefully that she almost believes it, dragging herself along the dirt floor in an effort to find salvation. Her body is so bloated with it that she needs release somehow, something to rid her of this pressure that splits her at the seams and exposes her fragile mind to all the familiar horrors that it brings. The images begin anew of the screaming and the dying and the killing but they don't disgust her as they used to, bleeding together into one monochrome pattern she can ignore.

_It needs somewhere to go, _she reminds herself as memories of last time flash dimly in her head, _somewhere other than here._

Her hands touch the man she had talked to earlier, her fingers grasping his ankle so tightly it crushes, anchoring herself to this thing that is real and there. He starts in surprise, mumbling through his haze, his eyes drifting down to her body writhing on the floor.

"P'rst'ss?" He slurs in confusion as she drags herself towards him, awkwardly rolling on her side as she fumbles for his hip. "Wh't doin'?"

"Use it." She gasps, managing to unsheathe the knife at his waist and press it into his limp hands. "Use... help—" Santana curls up as the darkness forces itself upon her again with insistence, driving itself so deep it reaches places she forgot existed. (She will never be clean after this, no, never again.)

He stares at her, limply grasping the knife, hovering it between them.

"Cut." Santana tells him; she retches another bout of slime that spreads out between them. He doesn't move and this time she _roars_ in a voice not her own that shakes the foundations of the home and sends roosting birds scattering from their perches. "**_Cut!_**"

Terrified, his hand lashes out and catches her across the neck; darkness spews from the gash in her throat and she screams with tortured release, the anger and the hatred draining from her so quickly she feels disoriented. A hollow rumble of discontent sounds in her mind as the blackness sinks into the earth, disgruntled at once again losing its prize. Styrr disappears in a violent whirlwind of darkness to the stillness that descends upon the room.

She has taken enough of its influence that it will leave them in peace. (For now.) Feeling vaguely accomplished, she lets her head thump down soundlessly upon the ground. Somewhere, something in her feels satisfied, but the lingering remnants of it anchoring itself down into her flesh drowns out the victory.

Santana closes her eyes and lets herself drift away; the flesh of her throat knits itself back together seamlessly, as if she hadn't simply lost a piece of her sanity to achieve it.

...

"Wake up, Santana, please, not now. Come on, you have to wake up!"

She sputters back into the waking world with a gasp, disoriented when she finds herself in the room they had been given as guests. Brittany holds her close, almost upright, stroking her back tenderly and cradling her head with one hand. Santana mumbles incoherent sentences as she gathers herself, drawing a hand over her face and noting it free from the grime that had covered her as she rid the village of its demons.

"Britt... where are we?"

Brittany draws back so she can look into her face, her eyes unusually wide and panicked.

"At the village, remember? We went to sleep and you started having your bad dreams again, but San, there w-was this _thing_ outside and I don't know what it is!"

Was that all it was? A dream? Santana knits her brows in confusion and shakes her head in an attempt to rid herself of the exhausting shadows. "What thing?" She asks, slumping heavier into Brittany's comforting warmth.

"I don't _know_, San, haven't you been listening? It was tall and dark and it _looked_ like a person, honest, but there was only two eyes that looked like Lord Tubbi's at night by the fire and a tiny little demon that followed it. I tried to call out a-and it turned and _grinned_ at me, a-and—"

Now she feels Brittany trembling beneath her, but the description is suspicious enough to warrant her getting up from the embrace. "Come on," she says, hauling herself upright and subtly checking for injures—she finds none, "show me what it is."

They dash outside into the darkness. All is still and silent, but the oppressive weight from earlier is long gone. In its wake is a certain calmness that should upset but does nothing of the sort, instead filling Santana with a sort of peace that puts her at odd with her violent night (violent dreams?). They search everywhere, every alleyway and every road, until she feels herself lagging with fatigue. Brittany grows more confused the less they find, running her hand over her head in agitation.

"It was there, I swear. I saw it."

Santana rubs her eye with the heel of her palm, yawning so wide her jaw threatens to crack. "Whatever it was, it's gone now." She laces her hand in her companion's, stroking her thumb over her hand to relieve the tension she feels there. "Come to bed, Britt, I need you there. I had a terrible dream."

Unused to her honesty, Brittany smiles softly and nods, sparing but a glimpse back to the dark road where nothing but deceiving shadows await her.

If she notices the scratches on the back of Santana's hand she doesn't say anything. Neither of them do.

* * *

><p><strong>October 21th, 912<strong>

Despite their half-hearted protests, Brittany and Santana stay an extra day amidst the celebrating villagers. The sickness had miraculously disappeared the night before, leaving nothing but healing rot and corpses in its wake. Though their losses were devastating, the townsfolk were convinced they were to thank for the swift and sudden recovery, bestowing upon them all the items they could spare for the remainder of their trek. Brittany was gifted a thick leather tunic to be pulled over her gambeson, and Santana a warm pair of gloves. Each were given boots made of the cunning arctic fox to withstand the snows that threaten the horizon.

It takes them three day-walks to reach Finnmork. So late in the year the sun rears lower and lower in the sky with each passing day, and the two rely on Santana's light to guide them deeper into the heart of the north. In such dim twilight, Santana has difficulty distinguishing reality from her increasingly frequent dreams; Brittany rocks her nearly every night as she struggles against the thing that takes her away from the mortal plain. (She dreams of that village always—in it they die and burn to ashes, much like they had before. Smoke lingers on her clothes and she rolls away from the fire, reminding herself over and over again that they are safe now.) Brittany is her constant guardian no matter how violent and brooding she becomes, cheering her up with observations about the wildlife and jokes that make her laugh so hard she cries.

On the fourth day, they look at their map and realize that their little figures almost overlap those of the giants. They have hit the northernmost tip of the world and it howls in bitter gales, crystals of ice stinging their faces as it swirls past them. Snow has already begun to fall here, coating the ground in a thin layer of freezing slush. They squint at the map and enhance the picture.

"They must be only half a sun away." Brittany whispers in awe, looking up suspiciously in an attempt to glimpse them. Despite her trepidation at recruiting such mythical beasts, she longs for this journey to come to a close; she's more than frozen, ill prepared for so early a winter, and this is after years of living in a similar climate. Santana shakes in her furs and burrows herself further into her cloak, hunching her shoulders for warmth.

"Then we should find them." She chatters harshly, cupping a small white flame in her palms and keeping them close to her body. Sandalio trots beside them, his thick fur sodden and cold, his ears perked for any minute noise. Yesterday he had helped his tall mistress hunt a reindeer that had separated itself from its herd, and now his belly is warm and full of meat. The cold bothers him none as he bounds through the gathering snow, throwing snowballs up into the air with his mouth, snapping to catch them and sneezing in surprise when they enter his nose. Once or twice he nudges a snowball towards his smaller mistress, but she simply looks at it blankly until he huffs in discontent and the other whips it away, making him tear through the forest in pursuit.

Despite the severity of the situation, it all feels rather simple and domestic. It brings a smile to Santana's frozen lips. (Maybe one day.)

They hike through the mountainous terrain, hauling each other up crags and cliffs, trekking beside the burbling streams of the valleys. Santana has never seen a place so beautiful in its lethality—rocks hang precariously from tiny perches and threaten to crush them, streams deceiving in their strength that they drink from. It seems abandoned, untouched by human settlement; the perfect place for an otherworldly creature to make their home.

When the sun has long since peaked, Brittany goes rigid, grabbing Santana by the collar and yanking her back. She yelps in protest but she slaps a hand over her mouth, pointing with a trembling finger. "There, look." She whispers and Santana squints at the form in the distance. Upon brief inspection it could simply be a large boulder, bitten with frost, but as they look closer it shifts and groans with the power of a creaking iceberg. She chances a glance at their map and notes that their avatars have merged together.

There is one, but... where is the other?

The mountain they had just passed moans in protest and Brittany shoves her down into the dirt, throwing herself over Santana as a massive chunk of ice sails over their heads and crashes into tiny shards upon the cliff face. Another being emerges from a cave carved into the side of the mountain, holding a large boulder in its right hand, its breath a rumbling growl.

Brittany gapes up at it soundlessly; the troll they had fought earlier in the year was nothing compared to this. The jotunn towers easily over both of them, the top of her head barely catching its thigh, and its grey skin is covered in layer upon layer of thick frost. Mist howls from its mouth as it breathes, reminiscent of a mid-winter blizzard, and as it rears to strike again she spots the unearthly glow of its eyes, hidden in the furrows of its face and the cold folds of its snowy beard. They throw themselves forward as it grasps for them again, falling into the freezing stream, hearing Sandalio's panicked yelp as they are swept under the water. Brittany gasps and flails blindly for purchase, barely finding Santana's wrist as they travel together down the river.

Rocks scrape at her knees and deliver white-hot pain to an otherwise frozen existence, the icy water so heavy in her thick gambeson that drags her downwards. Her fingers grip tightly to Santana's wolfskin robe as the rapids roar in their ears, violent, a screaming god. Brittany hits a large boulder with her side taking most of the impact and sees stars.

Santana feels her companion's grip loosen and fights the current towards her, attempting to keep her afloat as they are swept towards their destination. They shouldn't be going this fast, not when it was a mere trickle before.

She hears the waterfall before she sees it.

The drone in her ears turns into a roar; a million beasts dying at once, a thousand lightning bolts hitting the earth. Winter has not yet gripped so hard as to freeze the water and tons of it cascades down to the rocky depths at the foot of the mountain, falling hundreds of feet to a slow and painful death. She fights for the shore in a losing battle as the cold claims her mind, and this is it, after travelling for so long _this _is how she's going to die—

Something snags them by the waist and lifts them clean in the air mere feet from their inevitable death. She shrieks as the world passes by them in a dizzying rush, Brittany regaining her senses enough to grip at the fingers that have clamped around her midsection in an iron embrace. She lets it happen, tensely awaiting her fate, hissing at Santana to stop struggling so as she fights against the hold.

_Put out your hands! _She admonishes internally, pushing down a bout of fear as they are raised to the face of the jotunn she thought was far in the distance. _We want them to listen, not to try and kill us!_

Santana refuses, attempting to get a clear shot, before Brittany manages to reach over and clamp her own hands over her palms. It leaves her skin with angry red burns, but she grits her teeth, making what she hopes is reassuring eye contact with her companion.

_Trust me,_ it says, and Santana finally relents, allowing Brittany to retract her hands and place them once again on the grip of her captive. This time, the cold soothes.

"What have we here?" The jotunn booms in what could possibly be amusement. "Two _maðr_ so very far from home. Are you lost, little ones?" It pulls Santana closer until she can see her own reflection in the bright shine of its eyes. "Such a strange colour on you, _maðr_. You must be from the burning lands far to the south."

"Something else will be burning if you keep me here!" But her voice wavers slightly and it laughs—the sound is a storm coming to rest.

"You are in no position to make demands." It turns its attention to Brittany, who watches the exchange warily from the other side. "And you! You with the facade of a man and the spear of a warrior. Why do you not fight? Your companion chooses to fight your battles for you?"

Brittany worries her bottom lip nervously, refusing to squirm in its hold. "We have travelled very far to seek you out, jotunn. Both of you."

"Us?" It exclaims, shaking her so violently her vision swims. "Why would two puny _maðr_ seek us? Have you a wish for death?"

"Perhaps they do, Toppurinn." Comes another voice; the other giant, the one that had scared them into the river. Its beard is shorter and it stands slightly taller, but it seems to have no time for games. "Does it matter? We have food now. Stop playing with your meal and give me the bigger one."

Their captor—Toppurinn—scowls at his ally. "Why? I was the one that fished them from the river before they fell."

"And I was the one that forced the river upon them." Its companion asserts, crossing its massive arms over its chest in a very human display of annoyance. "If not, they would have found another place to hide, and we would be hungry once more."

"You _always_ get the larger one, Stórhríð!" Brittany grunts as the new jotunn grabs her around the shoulders, attempting to free her from her constraints.

"Because _I_ am the older sibling!" She's jerked backwards into Toppurinn's chest, and her arm groans in discontent at being contorted in such a position. Her eyes water.

"I saved them!"

_Tug._

"I saw them first!"

_ Yank. _

"Santana!" She calls out anxiously, almost falling twelve feet to the ground when Toppurinn loses grip on her. "Now would be a good time for help!"

"Oh, so _now_ you want my aid?" Santana snarks, cringing in sympathy as Stórhríð pulls on her leg so hard Brittany yelps in pain. She receives a glare from those pale blue eyes and she sighs, lighting her hands aflame and burying them into the thick hide of the giant, through the endless layers of frost and straight into the flesh.

It roars and drops both of them unceremoniously into the dirt where they roll onto their stomachs, wheezing. Toppurinn clutches at its burnt hand with disbelieving eyes, staring at the smouldering hole her fists have left in its skin.

"That one... that one _burnt_ me!" It exclaims in rage, stomping upon the ground and nearly crushing Santana's head as she rolls away. Brittany coughs once and fumbles for her axe; the inlays flash a magnificent blue as she rushes at the foot that is primed to crush her companion into the stones. Before she can reach it, however, the other giant grabs her by the waist and hoists her once again in the air.

"You are going nowhere, shield-maiden." Stórhríð says, but it looks at her now through different eyes. She thrashes and struggles, spitting threats and swinging metal, twisting to look at Santana who throws another fireball at the sole of Toppurinn's foot. The result sends sheets of melted ice down upon her head, soaking her (though truly, the river did that already).

Stórhríð snags Santana before she can be crushed, holding them at arm's length and appraising them thoroughly. _Perhaps they are better off alive for now._ It muses thoughtfully, pointedly ignoring Toppurinn's rage of protest.

"What is a priestess doing so far north?" It asks curiously, silencing its sibling with a glare.

"We would have gotten to that if you had not tried to tear me in half." Brittany wheezes angrily, her hip still throbbing from the pull. She prays it isn't broken, not when she so needs her strength.

"You said you were here for us." It continues, ignoring her. "Why?"

"We need you, and you need us." Santana says briskly, fighting down the impulse to flee. "We come to ask of your aid."

Toppurinn laughs, but it isn't the sound from before—it has anger now, carried upon the winds of its injury. "You? We need you? The jotnar need no little _maðr _for anything!"

Stórhríð shushes it for the second time by stomping upon the ground and sending a boulder of ice into the air—it topples its sibling into the stream with an enraged roar. They see the very hints of a smirk grace their captor's features. "You have a minute to convince me before my appetite gets in the way of your explanation."

"There is a war coming." Brittany hurries, leaning forward the best she can. "The men from the south come with their ships and their god to wipe out my people and all those who reside here. They have many, many warriors who will die for their cause and we cannot fight them off alone. We need allies."

"The men from the burning lands?" It asks suspiciously, eyeing Santana.

"Not all of them." Brittany replies. "Some. These men have no care for skin or creed, only violence. They die for their god and they kill for him until nothing else remains. They have already wiped out much of Santana's—my friend's—country and seek to do the same here. My father, Jarl Betar, protests."

Stórhríð looks at them appraisingly, shifting its gaze from one to the other with its searing eyes. "Why should we help you? Your kind has no love for us, and nor we for you."

"Because if you refuse, the both of you are much too stupid for us anyway." Santana snaps in irritation, barely flinching as its angry gaze swings to her.

"Santana, you're being mean again!" Brittany warns belatedly, squirming anxiously in his hold. Frost jotnar are terribly easy to anger; perhaps because their mental faculties are... lacking. But this one seems to be unusually intelligent for its kind, and a smart jotunn is a dangerous jotunn. Its sibling seems to possess none of the same qualities and is instead simply the brawn in the equation.

Santana discards Brittany's warning entirely, meeting Stórhríð's surprised stare. "If they win, we will die, which means you also will die. These men who come are hostile to anything other than themselves—this means the centaurs that we met will fall, the trolls in the forests will fall, and _you _will fall. You think you can defeat them? Try. Their armies stretch higher than these mountains." Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but in times of peril...

Stórhríð looks at her for a very, very long time, before nodding slowly. "And if you win?"

"Then my people—those that I know, anyway—will leave you in peace so you can do whatever it is jotnar do." Brittany promises. _Probably eating and pillaging_, Brittany reflects, but chooses not to voice her opinion.

They hover in the air for another small eternity before the jotunn sighs, its wind freezing them in an icy blast.

"Do I receive the names of my allies?"

Brittany's face splits into a brilliant grin and if she could she would dance in his hold, if not for the pain in her hip. "I am Bretagne Piersson of Kaupang, daughter of Jarl Betar Silver-Spear!" She proclaims proudly, reaching over and nudging at Santana until she does the same.

"And I am Santana Lopez of Iberia." Santana repeats in a significantly less exuberant tone. The jotunn nods once in approval.

"I am Stórhríð, son of Thiassi, and this is my brother, Toppurinn." The brother in question snarls in annoyance at being thwarted once again by his sibling, scowling so deeply his large eyebrows make ridges into his flesh. "Ignore him, he is simply hungry. We both are."

Brittany taps her fingers excitedly upon his fist. "We brought bread in our packs. I heard you enjoy that."

He swings his head towards her so fast, the ice sheet covering his neck groans like a stiff old man. "Where are your packs?"

"Where you threw us in the river, I think."

All at once they are wading their way through the freezing stream - it reaches Stórhríð's broad chest and he holds them above the water, fighting his way through the current until he reaches their former destination. Brittany's nose brushes the stream several times and she gulps in fright, lifting her limbs away from the churning current. Sandalio runs in circles upon the shore, barking madly and jumping up high in the air, delirious with delight upon seeing his mistresses unharmed.

"No." Stórhríð says firmly a moment before Toppurinn reaches for him, drawing back sullenly as his stomach growls at what could have been.

It's just as well, dog fur sticks in his teeth.

Brittany is let down much more gently than she anticipated and she limps her way towards their pack, drawing out oversized loaves of bread and throwing them at their captors (allies?). That was one of the peculiar requests she had asked of the villager before they had been sent on their way, and they had baked up a storm of sweet-smelling breads to be stuffed in her pack. Santana nearly had a fit when Brittany took them away from her upon attempting to eat it, refusing to back down and singeing one in her discontent. They eat that one, tossing away the burnt bits as the jotnar devour their offering.

It seems that their race thinks calmer on a full stomach, sitting by the bank and watching the sun begin to set. Toppurinn watches curiously as Santana tends to Brittany's hip, tenderly feeling around the joint and rotating the sore muscles. Brittany hisses her unhappiness but does little more than squirm in discomfort as she soothes her healing palms over the area. She invokes no magic but her touch takes away the pain.

"Such fragile bodies." Toppurinn muses aloud, poking Santana's cheek with one long finger. She glares at him and relights her fist, smirking when he flinches back towards the river. "How have you become so widespread when your flesh is so weak?"

"I'll show you weak." Brittany threatens darkly with her hand firmly gripping her spear, half a mind of getting up before Santana pushes her back down into the cold dirt.

"No moving for you." She scolds lightly, patting her cheek to calm her. "Not until it heals. It should only take a few days, provided you move it little."

Her friend flops back down to the ground, manoeuvring her face to avoid the dog tongue that licks at her nose. "We have no more time to stay here," she groans in exasperation, "not when the army is coming so soon. We have to leave."

Santana rolls her eyes at her insistence; usually it is her disregarding Brittany's advice and not the other way around. "The army has not moved for days, and they show no signs of leaving their camp. Surely they can wait on our arrival a little while longer."

Stórhríð turns his massive head to her, his arms stretched out behind him to support his weight. From here Santana can see he is not as huge as she once thought—his body is rather lanky, only so broad because of his towering height and the thick carapace of frost covering his frame. "You can see them?" He asks her, musing. (She sees an intelligence that betrays him, much like Sophias. If he survives starvation he will be ancient like her.)

"Sometimes." She admits, forcing a sweet licorice tea into Brittany's hands which she prepared upon the pitiful little fire they created. "In my dreams, though they have been muddled as of late. Drink, Britt, it will help with the swelling."

She's lost almost all her stash from Iberia, just a few measly twigs of her most potent plants remaining. She fears they will all be gone once this battle is won. If it is won.

They have draped their outermost clothes over a fire so that they may dry, clinging to each other for warmth in the cave the jotnar were kind enough to carve out for them. Santana believes it is more to ensure they don't die and the two lose their only tenuous connection to their new allies, but she doesn't dare dissuade Brittany's optimistic thinking.

She glares at her companion until she drinks the last drop, forcing it back to her mouth when she attempts to discreetly pour it out. "You act like her wife." Toppurinn snorts loudly, oblivious to how they both freeze for a moment in an attempt to come up with a suitable barb.

Stórhríð, however, isn't.

"Well, for a moment I thought you and your brother a couple." She sneers in retaliation, grinning at the way his enraged eyes turn on her. Santana ignores the violent fluttering in her chest at being linked to Brittany in such a way—the warrior, for her part, smiles dreamily with a faraway look.

The older jotunn studies them so thoroughly Santana feels naked under his stare. "What?" She snaps cagily, inching just slightly away from Brittany in the process. Brittany frowns and she feels guilty at once.

He chooses not to call her on it, not yet.

"There was another thing you wanted." He states knowingly, crossing his legs to lean his elbows upon his knees. In this pose she has to crane her neck upwards to remain in eye-contact, nearly toppling backwards. "Before, when you were speaking of allies. There was something else."

Brittany and Santana share a silent glance, but he catches it. "Do not try and lie to the _hrimthusar_, little ones, we always know."

Brittany fiddles anxiously with her fingers, shrugging back on her warm gambeson in an effort to distract herself. "We need more people."

Toppurinn frowns. "You have us."

"You alone are not enough." Santana snaps, but Brittany's hand on her thigh calms her.

"The both of you together are a great force, surely, but there are only two of you. To defeat an army, we need more." She reveals, spreading her palms in a gesture of peace.

"You mean to say we are inferior to a group of _maðr_?" Toppurinn exclaims angrily. "We are worth hundreds of you! Our axes have cleaved things far greater than you will ever know!"

(_Have they?_ Santana wonders as she eyes the edges of the shifting darkness.)

"Of course we don't say that!" Brittany rushes to say, running her hands over her head. She's quickly learning the frost jotnar are a warlike people, easily insulted if you say anything to sully their honour. It's difficult trying to forge forward when she has to dance around battlegrounds as large as oceans. "You will be worth more than dozens of regular warriors... but still, our numbers are inferior. I possess no ability to count, not really, but I know they have many more to pit against us."

"There are another people here," Santana continues, shrugging on her robe, "whom would be of use to us. I believe you have crossed paths with them many a time."

"The Sami." Stórhríð says knowingly, nodding his massive head in agreement. "They would make useful allies—their mastery over the mountains make them shadows in the snow. There is a large tribe not far from here."

"Will you take us to them?" Brittany asks hopefully.

The two brothers share a grin. "Oh, we will do more than that."

All of a sudden they are lifted up into the air again—Santana grows tired of this—and placed upon the shoulders of their allies. Despite their size they emerge from the cave and hurtle forward into a lumbering run, ever so slowly picking up speed until trees blur past and young saplings are crushed under their feet. Sandalio races along beside them, tongue lolling from his mouth; Brittany laughs joyously and spreads her hands out like a soaring hawk to relish the unique feel of wind whipping past her face, while Santana shrieks in terror and curls around Stórhríð's head, her hands grasping fistfuls of his snowy hair. Toppurinn grins despite his initial hostility and accelerates to the point where Brittany thinks they will leap into the sky and disappear.

"Put me down!" Santana shouts into Stórhríð's ear, clinging on for dear life when he shakes his head.

"Not a chance, priestess!" He booms over the roaring wind, leaping easily over a crevice between the mountains. "You _maðr _are too slow!"

They reach their destination to a cacophony of startled yelling; Brittany is breathless with laughter as she slides down Toppurinn's body with nothing but the power of her arms, while Santana awkwardly clambers off and retches as soon as her feet touch the ground. Brittany pats her back, unable to wipe the grin from her face. A shame this is how they will be getting anywhere from now until Kaupang.

* * *

><p>It had taken all of the night and much of the morning for the jotnar to convince the mountain people to join. Their coastal allies had struck out for Tanmaurk many moons ago and had yet to return, leaving their <em>siida<em>—their family tribes, grouped into ten or twenty people—bereft of men to perform the hunting and fishing so central to their existence. The women and the children work double to compensate for the holes they leave behind.

Brittany and Santana sit in the shadow of their little huts—Stórhríð has managed to uncomfortably fold himself into the largest one and his breath frosts the reindeer hide walls and wooden posts that keep it standing. He speaks to an elder, the furrows of his face deep and weathered from many, many years spent living in the unforgiving north. They converse in the ancient language of the Sami people that, Santana is surprised to learn, sounds nothing like the Norse she has come to know. She tries to follow their conversation but is hopelessly lost within minutes and instead curls around the warm flames of their hearth, letting Brittany respond to their questions and instead drifting lazily in and out of sleep for the time they spend talking. They are brought broth made of the reindeer the Sami hunt so efficiently that warms her stomach, and clean water from the nearby lakes. She dozes off against Brittany's thigh with a certain degree of peace.

Eventually she stirs to Brittany nudging her awake with a bright grin—she glances out the flaps of the hut, noting the sun has yet to rise over the peaking mountains.

"They agreed to fight with us." She whispers excitedly, her eyes tired but hopeful. "There are other tribes the elder will gather, and they will come to Kaupang within the next moon or two."

Santana rubs her eyes with her hands, yawning wide and stumbling to her feet. "How did you convince them to do that?" She wonders absently, mindlessly threading her hand through Brittany's before she can remember where she is.

"Oh, I just answered questions. Stórhríð did all the work... he is quite smart, jotunn or not."

"And Toppurinn?" She emerges into the cold and it takes her breath away for a moment, curling into her cloak.

Brittany shrugs. "Who knows? Off terrorizing gulls, I believe."

Santana climbs sleepily up the massive jotunn's back, clinging onto his hard carapace until she clambers over his shoulders. Brittany is slung between his hip and his belt, but it chafes under her arms and pulls at her injury until he eventually just picks her up once again in one colossal palm. As her companion dozes on and off, almost falling from his shoulders, Brittany wiggles curiously until she turns to face him.

"How do you pick us up like this?" She asks, patting what she assumes to be the muscle of his bicep. "Despite your size, humans are tall creatures in their own right."

He laughs, leaping over a massive boulder and nearly sending Santana into a fit, now far too awake to ignore the fact they are once again hurtling down the mountainside at ridiculous speeds. "You are not as heavy as you believe, little one," he reveals with a grin, ducking back into their cave. "We jotnar possess much more than your strength." He refuses to elaborate, leaving Brittany with more questions than answers, but Santana's fire and the smoking meat upon the burning rocks is much more pressing an issue. She huddles to it, warming her hands upon their pure white flames.

Day comes and goes with but a few hours of sun. Brittany basks in it whenever she can, her injured hip stretched out before herself, lying lazily upon the icy floor with Sandalio's body pillowed behind her. Santana spends the day sorting her herbs and supplies, rummaging through the rest of what Sophias gave to them (she mourns the loss of the honey, eaten entirely by Brittany and her sticky fingers) and, when all else fails, crosses her staff across her knees and attempts to meditate. Despite her vacant gaze Brittany can sense the turmoil as she fights to stay in trance, and it puts her on edge for hours upon end.

Eventually Toppurinn returns and snaps the priestess from her dream with a sudden sharpness that startles; they talk in murmured voices and take their fill, one by one rolling upon their sides in order for sleep to take them. Tomorrow they will begin the trek south, back to Kaupang, with far more allies than they had first anticipated. Soon enough Betar will send them to Sæheimr to speak to the king (or whatever a king Nor Veg could possibly claim) and beg him for his support—their life is beginning to look like an endless road, with only the distant promise of war marking the end. Yet it looms closer the colder the nights get, a harsh reminder that their journey is far from over.

Brittany, sensing her companion's unease, crawls her way forward until she sits behind her, curling her body around that familiar wolfskin robe and gently resting her chin upon Santana's shoulder. The other girl doesn't move her eyes but allows their hands to tangle together as she stares into the flames.

"What if we lose?" She asks Brittany quietly, thinking back at all the friends she has made in Kaupang over the moons. "What would happen then?"

The warrior shrugs slightly, having been in many battles but never any wars. "Then we regroup and try again. My father will go to Valhalla ensuring that Harald does not take our people."

_It is not your father I worry about, silly girl._ Santana sighs and tilts her head slightly so she can make eye contact with her. "Promise that you will not do anything foolish on the field."

Brittany gives her a sly grin, untempered by Santana's worry. "Foolish? Me? You offend my sense of honour."

Santana snorts. "Your sense of honour can go drown in a lake if it keeps you alive." She replies firmly, leaning back more fully against Brittany's front until they could be one being, merging heartbeats. "I will never understand you northerners and your penchant for throwing yourselves into life-threatening situations with a smile."

"You must not mind terribly if you keep me around." Brittany nuzzles fondly behind her ear, dropping her hands to squeeze at her hips. Santana laughs low, tilting her neck for better access.

"Or perhaps my affection outweighs my annoyance." She feels the smile against her skin from where Brittany imprints it into her flesh, every part of her prickling in warmth at such love in Santana's tone. She might not see it for what it is now, so unused to the ways of the heart and the joy it brings, but she will.

They sit in the comfortable silence these types of nights bring. Toppurinn slumbers on, his snores of creaking glaciers, a puff of snowflakes rising from his mouth with every breath. Santana feels the question on Brittany's lips as surely as her own, but waits, knowing one cannot force the gossamer threads of her mind together if it is to have any type of coherency.

"What of us, then?" Brittany asks softly, brushing her hands nervously down Santana's thighs.

_Ah, there it is_. Santana reflects and sighs slightly, shifting until they meet eyes once again. "What _of_ us?" She deflects; Brittany's eyes roll in annoyance.

"You know what I mean. What happens when we return to Kaupang?"

Santana shrugs in her hold, averting her gaze to the flames. "We bring our allies, win the war, and live happily ever after. Is that not what you want?"

"Of _course_ it is." The sincerity in Brittany's voice startles her, and she turns in time to catch how her blue stare sobers and darkens. "You have no idea how much."

"Then what seems to be the problem?"

Blonde brows furrow—a trait seen when Santana is being particularly obtuse.

"I want all of those things with _you_, San." Brittany murmurs, brushing the backs of her knuckles over Santana's cheekbones. "I want to travel to your little town and meet all the people you grew up with, I want to roam around the north and the south, east and west where Mikhail came from. I want to explore the world, but only if I can do this with you. If you deny me the chance while at Kaupang, who says you will allow me later?"

Santana huffs out a breath in frustration, shuffling so that she sits sideways and is able to sling her arms over Brittany's shoulders. "You _know_ I will, Britt. We just... we cannot, not now when there is so much at stake. You need to work with your father, not fight with him."

"Who says we will fight?" Brittany asks earnestly, leaning eagerly into Santana's warmth. "He will be happy with _my_ happiness, surely, as Grandfather knows and is happy—"

"Wait," Santana interrupts her, brows raising, "your grandfather knows?"

"He figured it out the days we were fighting." Brittany admits bashfully, scratching the back of her neck where it blooms red and hot. "I find it hard to keep things from him."

The priestess lets out a groaning breath and thumps her head upon Brittany's collarbone, fighting down a blush of her own. No wonder the old man always gave her those terribly tender stares when he thought she wasn't looking—she thought he was admiring _her_ instead! Gods, how foolish she feels; she buries her face in Brittany's leather jerkin in embarrassment. "And he minds not?" She squeaks out, nearly smothering herself in the fabric.

"Not at all." She pats the back of Santana's head fondly, stroking her hands through her dark locks. "Why do you think my father will be different?"

"You know how desperately he wants you to have a husband." Santana mutters bitterly, rising her head once the majority of her blush has cooled. "Telling him this will only make him want it more."

Brittany studies her carefully for a moment, weighing her words against her gut. While the little girl in her wants so badly to introduce Santana as _hers_, final and forever, her words of caution override that perhaps overeager impulse. No matter how much she hates to admit she has to hide their love, it seems to be the best course of action.

_(Piss to all of them!_ Sneers part of her brain. _Let them look and let them be jealous!_)

"Fine." She says, causing Santana to look at her cautiously. She smiles though it is sad. "If we have to, we can hide. But only for now."

Santana gratefully cups the back of her neck, nodding along as she draws her close. "Only for now," she agrees, bringing their mouths together in a slow kiss. The angle isn't the best and they're far too tired for it to evolve into more, but Brittany sneaks her fingers up Santana's robe and gently traces lazy patterns upon her shins that tickle and force a giggle from her throat. She smiles at the sound and opens her eyes slightly as Santana moves closer, almost startling from the kiss entirely as she spies Stórhríð's burning eyes watching them in the dark. She falters slightly as Santana sucks on the hinge of her jaw, but she doesn't look away. Neither does he.

"What is it?" Santana asks, breath hot against her skin in a way so distracting that Brittany takes her chin and pulls her back to her mouth for a slower kiss.

"Nothing." She reassures her with a smile. "Nothing at all."


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: Hello there, everybody! Because (or more probably, despite) of constant nagging from **Swinging Cloud**, I present to you another chapter of Battlesong. Thank you to the amazing two _thousand_ people who have decided to give my story a shot (I see you on my stats, I know you're there). Don't be shy, tell me how I did! Brittany and Santana's adventures rely as much on you as they do their strangely well-rounded skill set. Great thanks to **LeMasquerade**, who despite (in this case, maybe because of) a nasty bout of food poisoning, has managed to get this to me in record time. Kudos!

Side Note: So, there was a story put up a while ago... you know, the one about the vikings that wasn't mine? Whichever anon simultaneously delivered a (rightfully deserved) masterful burn and referenced me? You most possibly made my week with that little review on her story. Kudos to you as well - you should reveal yourself so I can thank you properly.

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><p><strong>Chapter 18<strong>

**I've got no right to win**

**I'm just caught up in all the battles**

** October 25th, 912**

Sometimes Brittany just wants to tell Santana to forget her roots and forsake magic forever.

Now that winter has crawled up over their heads a new enemy approaches, looming over the horizon. The celebration of Winternights will begin in merely a few suns; a festival that rejoices in the beginning of the Wild Hunt and its spectral riders that chase their prey so far through the snows that their return brings the summer so many months away. It is an instance of feasting and laughter for the northern people in an otherwise bleak time, where the lands turn cold and their people will be lost to starvation and exposure alike.

But not for Santana.

Despite living in Iberia, her mami had long since taught her about the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, where the barriers between the living and the dead thin so drastically that spirits of all kinds slip through the cracks. In usual times offerings were made to ward away the bad and appease the good, but these weren't usual times—she feels the separation dimming day after day as the sun moves further in the sky, noting the passing of time headed closer to winter still. Brittany feels her endless unease as the dead come out to play, testing the waters of their temporary home, dancing through their firelight at dusk.

It seems such a burden to have such power without an ability to make it stop; a constantly raging river with no regard to floods or droughts. Sometimes Brittany wonders if she tried hard enough, could she just rip it from herself, like an arrowhead caught in the gut? Cast away all her premonitions and powers that so haunt her waking hours and become, in a sense, normal? Perhaps. But her beautifully stubborn girl would never go for that, she's sure—magic runs through her blood as it has for the generations never taught to her, and no matter how much pain it brings she would never forsake it. It confuses Brittany in the way that war confuses Santana, how the clash of metal on metal could be beautiful.

(In that sense, they compliment each other perfectly. Two opposite halves to form a whole.)

But winter leaves no time for idle thoughts—she shivers upon Toppurinn's strong back and pulls her arms closer to herself, rubbing them furiously in an attempt to steal some warmth back into her skin. Though the temperature can be cruel in Nor Veg, their proximity to the sea often calms the freezing winds to the point where it is manageable and far preferable to their cousins of the east, Kievan Rus, whose winters are a thing of whispered legend. Yet this year has been a year for legendary things, and snow falls over Finnmork despite autumn barely beginning to end. Despite the thick gambeson and leather jerkin, Brittany feels the cold as readily as if she had been dunked into the sea, her perch upon Toppurinn's shoulders not helping the chill. The core of him makes it feel like she embraces a hunk of ice.

_Are you well?_ Santana asks worriedly, watching Brittany shiver from her own seat upon the other giant. Her wolfskin robe wards off the vast majority of the cold, and her sole concern is the speed in which they traverse the forests and mountains.

_Just a bit cold._ She smiles warmly despite her discomfort, winding her gloved fingers in Toppurinn's frosty hair. _My hip hurts, is all._

The giants had done worse damage than she had initially thought when they fought over her, and the joint had stiffened to the point where she could barely walk on it. She uses Santana's staff as a crutch when they do step down upon the earth, hobbling along like Anvindr on the days when he can walk at all. Santana has fed her all the herbs that she can, but her supply has been exhausted and she finds herself bereft of any truly helping plants. (Brittany still doesn't want the little yellow flowers.)

_We will arrive at that village soon. _Santana encourages, riveting her gaze ahead. _You can get a proper bed and a good fire there, and I can help you bind your leg._

Moving so swiftly allows for a drastic leap in the time it takes to return to Kaupang. In a sun's travel, they will soon approach the town that took them three to reach the giants. They bound over raging rivers and shake branches from their eyes, Sandalio long relegated to a little pouch upon Toppurinn's hip. The animal-sized bundle squirms frantically until his bedraggled head pops out from the mouth, tongue lolling nervously.

_Mistress! _Santana hears him call, but she hushes him with a soothing thought and he soon settles back down to sleep.

They pass through time itself, and soon Brittany sees the forked ash that they had witnessed upon their journey north. "We're almost to a fine bed, Britt!" Santana exclaims with glee, rubbing her hands together at the thought of sleeping on something that isn't the ground. Brittany grins, relieved, but it is soon tempered as she looks upwards into the sky where a pillar of black smoke spreads out and blocks the gleaming sun.

"What is that?" she asks Toppurinn, who slows to a jog and inhales a raging gust of air with his enormous lungs. He slows still, holds it, and releases with a huff.

"Not good smoke, I can tell you that much," he says gruffly, drawing closer to his brother as they advance upon the dark cloud. "Better get your weapon ready, girl."

Brittany hesitantly draws her spear from its resting place across her shoulders, awkwardly holding it away from herself as they bounce upon the harsh terrain. Her hip cries out in protest but she ignores it, mindful of the way the hairs upon the nape of her neck stand as if struck by one of Thor's mighty bolts. There is an evil at work here.

Even Sandalio senses it, his head reappearing and his ears pricking forward anxiously. Santana wears a frown that can only mean one thing.

The darkness is here.

The two girls dismount hastily, guided to the ground by their carriers; Brittany hunches heavily on her spear and Santana instinctively lets her lean her sturdy weight upon her slender shoulders, the two of them making slow but steady time into the village. The two giants follow behind, their massive hands clenched into fists which have glazed over with clear and solid ice. They have never seen this place, know not of the secret horrors it hides. Stórhríð doesn't see the first body and his foot crushes it with a wet crunching noise, red splattering all over the grass. Brittany knows the sound all too well and doesn't bother to turn.

Whatever village they had left days prior has been wiped away; the longhouses burn spectacular shades of red and yellow, their dry logs feeding the blaze until it rips its way through the narrow streets with an unseen fury that only nature can bring. Bodies litter the streets in various degrees of mutilation and disarray; those that have not been utterly annihilated bare long, weeping gashes that look strangely like claws that gouge and tear, little teeth marks that shred and mangle. Limbs hang on posts and door frames, strung up by the torn clothing of the deceased. The smell of burning human flesh is overwhelming as they turn into black smoke to be carried away by the winds. Everywhere they look, things burn.

Both giants turn nervously around the flames, stepping gingerly through the battlefield. They watch in disbelief as the two humans simply walk _through_ the smoke and fire, as if unable to be harmed, barely staggering as it envelopes them completely for a few moments. Sandalio nips at their heels and guides them along, deep through the heart of the ruined town.

They come to a stop at the sick-house, its once proud front now crumbling and charred. Santana looks at Brittany for reassurance before stepping foot inside, comforted by the understanding smile she receives in return. Though they are feet from each other, she feels Brittany's spirit follow her inside, cloaking her in protection and warding away the worst of the pain. (Not a physical pain, no; Santana has no words for it in Spanish, Norse, or Greek that would do it justice.)

Those that had died of the plague were not awarded a proper burial; their remains lie with their kin, skin black and curling. The ones that had died of their grievous wounds are almost unrecognizable from those that passed in sickness—she bends down to take a closer look, touching the gashes upon a woman's back. Black seeps from the wounds and stains her spine an ugly grey. At the far end is the man that they had first negotiated with; the boy with the old eyes. She kneels down and gently strokes his cheekbones, closing the eyes that are frozen with fear. What was he looking at? Santana follows his line of sight but sees nothing.

Curious, she exits the building once more and peers into the forest where his last vision lay. Nothing there but trees, bowed under the weight of the ash that settles on their branches. Several sets of footprints track in and out of the area of varying shapes and sizes, but he had told her before they left that there was nothing but a sheer cliff that way. What could they want?

Brittany limps to her side, laboriously crouching down to study the prints. They seem off, feet dragging too much to be terrified. She frowns. "Wasn't there a graveyard in that direction?" she asks absently and startles at the way Santana's mind suddenly alights with ideas, bombarding her own head until she almost staggers with it. Her companion mutters a sheepish _sorry_ and drags her forward the best she can, hopping clumsily over fallen branches and trunks.

"What are you thinking?" Brittany grunts, flailing for balance as her bad leg gives out on her again.

"Remember when we first met them?" Santana asks, helping her a tad more carefully over a slumped boulder. "He said that a shadow brings the dead from their graves."

They distantly hear the giants crashing behind them, but their smaller bodies weave through the undergrowth with ease. "But they started burning them," Brittany rebukes, giving up and deciding to hop. "No town has that many dead."

"Did you see the streets?" Santana retorts, and Brittany falls silent in agreement.

The two of them come upon the little graveyard with an abrupt halt and the priestess has flashes of her premonitions, the streets running red and the bloated bodies scattered in a stagnant lake; these are no longer dreams but realities as she scans the area, aligning so perfectly with her visions she refuses to call it coincidence. Brittany is more concerned with the soft earth of the burial mounds, overturned and spread across the area.

"San..." she calls quietly, leaning upon her spear.

Still dazed, Santana approaches her, brushing a careful hand along the small of her back.

"What?"

Brittany bites her lip. "There's nothing left."

The toe of her boot touches the dirt, a rich brown. It is cool with the winter, but not yet frozen with its face turned underground. "All of the bodies... even the children. It took all of them."

Santana eyes the claw marks in the earth, whispering softly to the weeping trees where great portions of their trunks have been rent from their bodies. They tell her of a horrible massacre that occurred not even a half-sun ago, as the dead spilled from the forests and rose up from beneath the earth, crying out for something to ease their empty souls. The strange, hunched creature from Santana's dream (was it truly a dream?) skitters within their ranks and cries out in a screeching roar of anguish as the living are cut down like cattle.

There is a figure, too; a dark shadow with no true form that sweeps through the village and leaves devastation in its wake. What must be the true darkness pulses from it in tendrils, seething, searching for something she does not yet know.

"We just missed it," Santana mutters in disgust, kicking at the earth. "We could have been here, we could have _stopped_ this." She scowls at her own uselessness, clenching her fists until her knuckles crack. Brittany's hand circling her wrist does little to soothe the ache.

"You could have done nothing, priestess." Stórhríð's voice comes to them through the trees, his bulk emerging moments later. "If this was truly as great as you say, you would have died along with them."

She spins on him, infuriated. "We have killed the _draugar_ before, giant! We know how to destroy them! And with you, they would have crumpled underneath us like little clay dolls thrown into the flames of their buildings."

His snowy eyebrows rise. "You have killed a _single_ _draugr_, have you not? One?"

"They are all the same," she snaps. "Slow and stupid."

"Right now, what is your companion?" he retaliates. "Stupid, perhaps not, but certainly slow. If it succeeded in taking away her crutch, she would have been one of the bodies left about this place. And you? Are you strong enough to send a weapon through a human skull? Your magic is useless against them."

That same feeling of helplessness invades her, of never being good enough for the task they have to complete. "We could have done _something_."

Stórhríð gives her a sad, slow smile, his eyes flickering to the way Brittany worms an arm around her hip and draws her into the comforting warmth of her body. She melts into it, burying her eyes momentarily into the crook of her neck for strength. Breathing in the familiar scent of spearmint and sweat, she feels home.

"Do not torture yourself over the ones you cannot save, priestess," he advises kindly. "There are always too many. Take comfort that there are some able to be saved at all."

Santana flexes her fingers anxiously—why does she even care? They tried to kill them at first and tested their patience their entire stay. Surely a few primitive villagers living so high in the forests are of no concern to her? Perhaps Kaupang would be different, but...

_What good am I if I can save no one at all?_

She looks at the devastation around her with an unreadable expression. She needs to drown them out, to erase even the memory until nothing remains. Brittany silently accompanies her on her trek back to the village, holding her hand the entire time and not commenting on the fact that her grip grows tighter still.

_Promise me these people will never be us._ Santana pleads of her companion, stepping over a corpse.

_Never._ Brittany agrees readily, stumbling when they come to a halt in the center of the village. _What are you doing?_ She asks as Santana begins to unclip her cloak, laying it down gingerly across Brittany's shoulders and shimmying out of her robe. She doesn't answer until she has pulled off even her silk slip, her body turned modestly and Brittany's eyes averted with red cheeks.

Eventually, she receives a reply.

_Burning it down._

Santana raises her hands to the faraway sun, the rays catching her dark skin and scattering across it, fracturing and dappling her with the beauty that nature brings. She is a wild thing that mutters and hisses as the first few flickers of fire fan over her fingers, jumping from each digit and swirling over her nails. Brittany steps back a few paces as it consumes her hands but refuses to stop, instead running like oil down her wrists, her elbows, into the crook of her shoulders. It reminds her of that first time when she was betrayed and her rage manifested in burning pillars that seared her down to the bone. She closes her eyes and searches deeper than she ever has before.

It bursts from under her feet and licks about her shins, nipping at the flesh and scorching the old earth. She grins in a bared way that causes the flames still raging in the buildings to bend to her, their orange glow mixing with her pure white radiance. Brittany shields her eyes as Santana sweeps out an arm and the ruined husk of the sick hall shatters in a violent array of wood and metal, flying high up in the air and crumbling to dust before the remnants hit the ground. She laughs in a voice so pained it doesn't sound genuine as the village burns around her.

_Let them burn_, she thinks, watching as the flames devour the broken bodies strewn in the devastation. Where was once a human being remains but a fine pile of ash, so close to sand that one might not even notice.

She ignores the part that says _this could have saved them,_ instead swinging out her arm and barely even watching the resulting explosion that splinters trees into nothingness. It does not soothe the ache inside her, nor does it assuage what she refuses to call guilt. They were foolish enough to fight it, and now their ancestors will watch as they crumble into a fine grey sand.

Trees scream and birds cry and animals run, but she doesn't stop until every building has been touched, every post and pyre devoured. The fire has crept over her shoulders now, running down her back and up her legs. She is beautiful in a dangerous way, a scorned god. Brittany marvels in what she could possibly become; what she already is.

The darkness beyond the trees bends, obsolete in the face of her glow. Its presence taints what was meant to be a cleanse.

As they reach the end of the village, the light dims from her ever so slowly like a dying star. But there is no supernova, no explosion that wipes out the world—only the quiet hiss of an extinguished flame and the distinct scent of burnt hair. Santana's flesh is curiously untouched, though her locks have suffered upon the ends. She staggers once, and despite Brittany's injury, she catches her. (She always will.)

Nothing but ash remains. This place never happened, these people never existed. They can move on. (Santana likes it better than being forced to care. Brittany wishes a life wasn't so easily erased.)

"We should go," Santana murmurs, slowly dressing herself again.

(Brittany watches Santana have her invisible breakdown but doesn't say a word. That's the thing about coming apart at the seams—sometimes you don't want anybody to know until it's too late.)

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><p><strong>October 30th, 912<strong>

Winternights has begun, but the mood is somber in the forest. They are almost to Kaupang now, and despite the days that have passed they still smell the dead in their clothes and in their hair, shadowed by the constant musky scent of smoke that clings to everything they own. Santana has recovered from her temporary magicked stupor, but refuses to talk of it, snapping every time any of the three attempt to bring it up. Eventually they stop trying, and she breathes easier.

Brittany has been given to Stórhríð, his narrower shoulders easier to tolerate on long journeys. She clings to his scalp and takes comfort in the steady rise of his chest underneath her calves that drape over his throat, his firm hands every so often touching her ankles to reassure himself she has not yet fallen off. Santana has engaged in a heated debate with Toppurinn over something that eludes her, and the pair travel in relative silence to the bickering of their companions.

"You care for her," Stórhríð says suddenly. If not for the rumble of his chest underneath her feet, she would never have noticed his voice.

"I do," she agrees. What is the worth in denying it? He saw them that night in the cave.

"Enough to condone her actions?" the giant asks, stepping over a fallen tree. His voice is eerily flat and blank like a snowstorm coming in to rest.

Brittany bites her lip. "Santana has always had... strange ways of dealing with her grief," she explains, worrying his soft hair between her fingers. Her eyes automatically slide over to the object of her affection, smiling slightly as she waves her hands angrily in the air and beats her curled fists upon the crown of Toppurinn's head. "I find it is usually best to let her do what she wants. She always comes back to me in the end." _And she always will_, she adds silently to herself.

She feels Stórhríð's indecision in the air between them like a knife poised at her belly. "I am much older than many things in Midgard," he begins slowly, "and have seen much more. There are few things in the world capable of burning a village from the face of time. A human should not be one of them."

Despite what feels like warning in his tone, Brittany is proud of Santana for stepping beyond the boundaries of her heritage. All Santana wants is to show the world that she can be poised and powerful, in control in ways that they have never dreamed of. This power makes her tired and sick sometimes, and Brittany wishes she wouldn't use it at all, but the things she makes with its influence are nothing short of divine.

"Humans are capable of using magic too, you know," she reminds him. "You are not the only ones."

But he shakes his head, and though his gaze lays ahead she feels his eyes on her somehow, burning. "You know as well as I that this magic is nothing to be trifled with." She knows he talks not about the white magic that burned the village to dust, nor the blue that he has yet to witness in anything other that memories of a life long passed; only of the dark one, the black one, the one that steals into her sleep at night and taints the glow of her flames. He had seen the corpses as they swept the village up in their wake. Their sickness was no simple misfortune.

She agrees with him, of course, but Brittany's long since learned that the more attention she pays to it, the more defensive Santana becomes. Turning a blind eye to things that bother her has never been one of her strong suits, and every part of her cries out in protest each time she declines saying something to her lover, but she knows there is little that can be done. This affliction is something that she cannot cure alone with her spider hands, her strong hands. Perhaps it is of Styrr, or perhaps it is something greater, but they will know soon enough. War is coming for all of them.

"Have you seen it before?" she asks him hesitantly. Before all this, she vaguely remembers Santana mentioning it once in her fractured tongue, speaking of a bad man her mother chased away. Back then she hadn't understood her in the ways she does now, knew little of the way the shadows hid the true darkness of the night.

Stórhríð sighs heavily, little snowflakes gusting from his mouth and icing over the dying leaves upon the trees. There had been a man, once. Many, many years ago. He was never kind in his ways, but he was not cruel. As there were very few cities of great proportion years ago so far up north, he resided in a little village with his parents and sister, whom he cherished so deeply he would give up his own life for her without a second thought. Stórhríð had glimpsed him when he was but a boy, the messy shock of his hair blending in so well with the snow that he would simply lay down and disappear.

"It has been many years since I have seen its influence, but yes. I have." Years had passed and Stórhríð had lost sight of him, until the day when the raids came and the boy was forced out of the village with his family. He was a man now, tall and strong, but still protected his sister like the only thing he had left. They fled south in hopes of starting a new life, and the giant had all but forgotten him until he reappeared in the frozen north; too much time had passed to make him human anymore.

Brittany leans over, her whole body tense with anticipation. "Well?" she asks impatiently, craning her whole body to glance into the frosty whites of his eyes. "What happened?"

His sister had died many years ago, and he was driven mad with grief. In desperation, he had turned to the one thing that said it could bring his sister back from the grave— with the exception that he served it for the rest of his days. Too young and anguished to disagree, it had blackened him to his very roots until so little of the person he used to be remained. He eventually succumbed to the darkness that his master had planted, demons visiting in the dead of night until he drowned himself in a frozen lake in an effort to rid himself of the madness. Stórhríð had fished his little body from the water and laid him underneath the birch trees his sister so loved to climb.

"What always happens to people who would die for love," he rumbles quietly, and she prods him no further.

They make blinding time by crossing the fjords instead of skirting them; the giants cause the water to freeze underneath their feet and they walk over the placid inlets as easily as one would walk through a meadow. Brittany peers down at the fish swirling in the clear depths, nipping at the soles of frozen feet, recoiling once their lips ice over. As they reach the edge, their massive hands anchor onto the cliff-faces, scaling them as one would a ladder. The land below shrinks down to dizzying proportions until they crest and are once again on solid ground. Wind whispers through their hair; Santana hears the armies upon its breath and the scent of their fires rising up into the sky.

The world takes on a familiar tone, and Brittany swallows with nervous anticipation. They are almost home. Santana looks around, as if seeing the world from new eyes once again—she reaches over between them and squeezes Brittany's hand fleetingly before curling further into Toppurinn's sturdy body. Together, they stand upon the ridge of the mountains and look down into Kaupang.

Strangely enough, Brittany had expected it to look slightly different. But the streets still bustle with life and the chimneys still smoke liberally; the blacksmith's flames spill from his workshop even in broad daylight. Ships are docked in the ports, and if she squints she can see the sandy skin of southern merchants that have come to rest here with their frozen brothers, peddling their wares and unloading crates upon crates of supplies. Her father's blue longhouse sits proudly at the town's square as it always does, brilliant in its magnificence and far outshining the red one that rests opposite the square, its paint peeling and untended. Despite their recent battles, Brittany does so miss her father.

"Will they harm us?" Stórhríð asks, shrugging his shoulders so Brittany may sit more upright upon them. She leans over until her torso arches around his skull, resting her forearms upon the crown of his head.

"Not if they know you are with us," she replies confidently, praying she is right. The villagers will certainly heed her call, but she knows not what the foreigners will do. Many of them have never even heard of a giant, let alone believed they existed.

Toppurinn scoffs, shaking his head until Santana lets out an undignified squawk and clings on for dear life; below them, Sandalio barks in warning from his little pouch. "If they so much as try, we will crush them!" he proclaims, startling when his brother lands a solid blow to his chest.

"We will do no such thing," Stórhríð says sternly, fixing him with his glowing gaze. "We are not here to harm them. Have you never had an ally before?"

"We were allies with Ægir and his kin for many years," Toppurinn protests. "There were never any problems."

Stórhríð sighs. "That is because they could hit us back." He tilts his head so his cold cheek brushes against Brittany's thigh. "Lead us forward, then. If your kin throw torches at us, your entire village will meet a painful end."

She tugs tentatively on his hair and delights when he begins to move forward, stepping deftly down the nooks and crags that are ideal for large, flat feet. They make slow but steady time approaching the path that winds from Kaupang and into the rest of Nor Veg; once upon the ground, Brittany leans over to Santana and asks for her medicine horn. Santana eyes her strangely but relents, pulling it from her hip and handing it over. With care does Brittany remove the rest of her plants, cradling them in her left hand, while her right brings the horn up to her lips to sound.

A singular low note blasts through the mid-morning air, echoing through the trees and out into the town. People pause and look for the noise, whispering amongst themselves when it sounds again, closer this time. They crane for any sight—a low murmur begins from the very edges of the city, growing as the reason comes into view until it is an uproar of people shouting and running and gaping with open mouths.

At first it was a chaotic mess of scrambling for weapons, yanking axes from belts and spears from racks. The people of Kaupang arranged themselves into a loose line, bristling with polished iron and hastily put on helmets. Yet, as the giants came into further view, one man peered over their shoulders and lowered his weapon in disbelief.

"That... look!" He cries now, lips curving into an amazed smile. "Upon their shoulders! Bretagne rides the _hrimthusar!_"

They parade into town; ice patches form under the giants' feet and the children skate upon them, sliding each way and shrieking in delight. As they wind their way further into the heart of Kaupang more people take up her call until the whole village is roaring in approval, the foreigners slinking back to their boats in an effort to comprehend such madness. Santana is exhilarated more from the bashful grin on Brittany's face than the town's obvious approval. (It is about time they see how lucky they are to call her theirs.)

A figure comes out of the longhouse, ducking through the narrow doorway in an effort to investigate the madness. Brittany shrieks in delight and awkwardly worms her way from Stórhríð's shoulders, eventually placed down by his hand where she limps as quickly as she can and throws herself into her friend's arms. Mikhail grunts in surprise, staggering slightly under her weight, spinning her around in glee once he realizes who it is.

"Bretagne!" he exclaims joyously, his palm cupping her cheek as he grins. "I was so worried! You were due to return a moon ago!"

She laughs, squeezing him again before letting go. "We got distracted." It's only then he looks up, his jaw dropping down as the two giants stare down bemusedly at the little dark man with a collar around his strong throat. "These are our new friends, Toppurinn and Stórhríð. They are going to help us fight the southerners."

"Big..." he stutters. "You have... you got... _big_..."

"Have the sea crabs caught your tongue, Mikhail?" Santana calls down from Toppurinn's shoulders, peering over his large head with a smirk. His eyes light up at her appearance.

"Come down and say hello!" he demands good-naturedly, gladly sweeping her up in an equally enthusiastic embrace as Toppurinn sets her upon the ground. She rolls her eyes but hugs him back, genuinely glad to see him. Mikhail was one of the very few people here that never made her feel unwelcome nor a burden. He holds her at arm's length, studying the strong set of her posture that contrasts with her tired eyes. "I think that was the best sentence I ever heard you say," he marvels with a grin.

She shrugs off his compliment with a sly smirk. "I had much help. It was easy."

Brittany hops over to Sandalio and undoes his little pouch, laughing when he bolts over to Mikhail and places messy kisses all over his neck and jaw, his paws scrabbling on his shoulders for balance. Mikhail runs his hands affectionately through his fur, long gone thick and wiry for the coming cold, and scrunches his nose when his tongue finds his ear.

"You must be weary from your travels," he says with a smile, throwing a thoughtful glance to the giants before them, "you should come in and rest. Can the two of you fit through the doorway?"

"We should be able," Stórhríð replies, waiting for Santana to disappear into the longhouse before crouching down and worming himself in. It's a tight fit, punctuated by much grunting and laughter from the inside as Santana takes his hands and pulls with all her might, but eventually he staggers upright within the wooden home. Brittany goes after him, supported by Mikhail's shoulder as they limp slowly inside. Toppurinn is the last—his broader shoulders make for a difficult effort, and he becomes stuck just as Betar makes his way into the entryway.

Silence falls as he stares wordlessly at the jotunn trapped in his doorframe, his snowy beard draped over the floor as he claws at the ground in an effort to right himself. He slowly turns his head to eye Stórhríð with an eerily neutral expression, his gaze travelling over them all before finally returning to rest on Toppurinn. Without a sound, he plants a wooden pole between the struggling giant and his trapped shoulder, prying with all his might until he pops through and tumbles into a wall. The doorway splinters from the strain and Mikhail flinches with the sound.

He then turns to the gathered crowd, red brow raising until it nearly touches his hairline. "I believe we have much to talk about. Mikhail, send for a supper." The servant bows low, his long hair brushing the floor as he skitters away. The others make for the center hall, but his voice stops one. "Bretagne... stay here a moment."

The others filter out; Santana is assuaged by Brittany's soft smile and nod. _I will be fine. _She assures her, her whisper a balm to her worries. _Go eat, I will join you shortly._ Eventually she leaves, and they are alone.

Betar studies his only child thoroughly, taking in the way she returns with different clothing and a different smile. Though she has been gone but a moon or two, she appears older, somehow. No longer the child he so nurtured, she has bloomed into the woman she was always meant to be. When she tentatively takes a limping step towards him, he breaks and rushes to take her into his arms.

Brittany melts into his warm embrace, burying her face into the crook of his thick neck. He smells of bonfires and juniper, the salmon cakes of the fishmongers light upon his breath. She breathes him in and clutches even tighter, one hand worming into his burning red hair.

"I missed you," she mumbles out through the constricting of her throat, clinging onto him like a little child as he chuckles and it reverberates into her own chest. He strokes her hair, notes how it has grown thicker and longer with time. Santana must have learned how to braid it for her.

"I missed you too," he admits, setting her down upon a stool as she begins to favour one side. "What happened? Is it broken?"

She waves him off with a smile at the concern in his tone. "No, no... the jotnar and I had a rough start. Santana says it will heal in a few weeks if I leave it alone."

Betar nods and runs his hands through his bushy beard in disbelief. "I find it hard to believe that you brought jotnar to us. They are supposed to be a myth, living in Jotunnheim."

She laughs, eyes crinkling at the corners. "There are far more amazing things than giants in the world, father. We've seen a few in these past moons."

"I want to hear all about it," he says fondly, stroking her cheek to which she places a kiss upon his palm. All their hostility seems to have disappeared over the moons she has been gone, and in its wake rises an affection born from distance. "We should go eat, I'm sure the thralls have delivered our meal."

With his help she rises, and they make their slow way into the great hall. The two giants have folded themselves as close as they can to a bench where Santana sits, their massive hands stuffing bread into their mouths at an obscene rate. Crumbs fly everywhere, and Santana delivers an annoyed blow to Toppurinn's thigh when a piece of crust bounces from her shoulder. Brittany's excited grin turns affectionate, and she limps over to where they sit; Santana senses her before she arrives and smiles, leaning into the touch that trails along her back. Stórhríð seems warier than his sibling, watching Betar carefully as he makes his way to the head of the table and seats himself with a sigh. Others at the table, warriors and merchants alike, pause in their unabashed ogling of the two giants to pay him attention.

"There is no denying tonight is a special circumstance," he proclaims to the room, leaning forward in his seat and locking eyes with Brittany happily. "Not only has Winternights begun, but Bretagne has returned from her journey; with her, allies worthy of a feast." Murmurs of approval ripple through the hall even as they look at the giants with distrust. "This is a night for rejoicing in our prosperity and our friends. Let us feast!"

_Let us feast_ echoes from one voice to the other until the longhouse is filled with the sounds of laughter and meat tearing from bone; Brittany grumbles but puts up no protest when Santana wipes the dribbles of grease from her chin with a motherly reprimand. Stórhríð leans over, his hands full of waterfowl. "Your attempt to hide is not going over so well so far," he mutters, and her cheeks redden to the point of spilt blood when he rights himself again. It's near impossible to tame herself when Santana is around, for her affection spills from her like a cup too filled.

The celebrations carry on throughout the night; Brittany has not felt this relaxed in many suns, stretched out comfortably upon the wooden bench, her belly full of good food and heavy mead. Sandalio rests by her feet and Santana by her side—with the two of them, she feels home again.

When many of the guests stumble drunk back to their homes, Betar rises with a smile, his cheeks rouged but not crimson. "If the lot of you are still awake, I believe we should talk of your travels before you retire." Brittany rubs at her eyes but agrees, coaxing Santana up so that they may hobble together in the direction that Betar left. Their two allies follow them, shoulders hunched like vultures as they make their way through the space.

(Shadows bend and beckon with the dimming light of the torches; Styrr is nearby.)

_Why must we speak of this now? I want nothing more than you and your nice, warm bed._ Santana gripes silently as they settle in a smaller room by a crackling hearth, spreading herself out tiredly upon a bearskin rug. Her head rests heavily upon its preserved skull, and Brittany can't help herself as she brushes her hair away tenderly before sitting herself upon a stool. Thankfully, the priestess is too tired to notice the affectionate touch.

_Be nice._ Brittany reprimands half-heartedly. She is exhausted too, her hip radiating discomfort from being mounted upon Stórhríð's shoulders for hours. _Once he hears what he wants to know we can leave and sleep until tomorrow morn._

_Tomorrow eve, perhaps._ Santana corrects, curling loosely around her staff and watching Betar as he settles himself into a sturdy chair.

"Tell me everything," he asks of them—how can she sum a lifetime worth of memories into words that so often evade her? But she tries her best. She tells him of the draugr and who he used to be, she tells him of the centaurs and their kin that have agreed to help them in their journey. She even tells him of the village; not of how they met their end, no, (Santana tenses and grows anxious when it is mentioned), but how the gods had long abandoned them to their fate. Then she talks of Finnmork and its cold valleys, of the snow that falls so much earlier than everywhere else. She laughs at his awe as she recounts the tales of the Sami and their mountain tribes that had agreed to follow them into war for the safety of their descendants. She finishes her tale in a loop, returning to Kaupang upon this bearskin rug.

Betar remains silent for a few moments, stroking thoughtfully as his beard as he attempts to digest everything his daughter has told him. Undead? Centaurs? Giants? It is all too much for someone who had simply wanted to kill a plague that had settled upon a single village. He looks at Santana for a long, long time. "You can use galdr now?" he says, eyes narrowed.

"Yes," she replies, tucking her arm underneath her head so she can look at him fully. Her eyes unnerve him; they are eyes of someone much, much older than she. "Sophias taught me much when we were there. I can do many things."

_Including that trick with my tongue you like so much_, she reflects, her expression turning into a wry smirk when Brittany chokes upon air.

"And... that village? Were you able to cure them?" The smile slips from her face and Brittany grimaces subtly, shaking her head behind her back.

"Their end was something unavoidable," she says shortly. "I was unable to help them."

The mood in the room has sobered significantly, and Mikhail must sense it, for he appears in their space with a low bow and a nervous smile. "I believe our travellers are tired, my jarl. May I escort them to their beds?"

Toppurinn stands, stretching the best he can. "We will sleep outside," he says instead, dismissing the darker boy with a wave of his hand. "Being unable to see the stars is unnatural." His brother rolls his eyes, but bids his goodnights regardless, worming his way out, away from the braziers that make little beads of water roll from his temples. Brittany takes Mikhail's hand gratefully and stands, touching the soft skin of Santana's wrist cautiously and pouting when she pulls away.

"We will speak tomorrow, father," Brittany says with a smile, following her priestess as she makes her way outside.

"Of course," Betar replies. "And Bretagne?"

She turns to him expectantly.

"It... it is good to have you back."

His daughter smiles fondly. "It is good to be back." She limps away and out of sight, leaving Betar with his ponderings.

The trio make their way up her little hill, carefully sidestepping roots and branches as they come. Sandalio has joined them and nuzzles at Santana's hand when he can, licking at her salty fingers fondly. He, too, is glad to return to a place where his mistresses can be safe, no longer dodging the dead and the cruel in the middle of the night. Yet he feels Santana's unease in a place that may never truly be her home, the knowledge that they must hide who they are until this war is over. He offers the comfort that he can, and delights in the way she scratches gratefully at his ears.

_Thank you,_ she says kindly to him, stroking at his neck while they wait for Brittany and Mikhail to catch up. His growl rumbles deep in his chest and he leans against her, forever a pillar of warmth.

_Always, mistress,_ he replies in the way only a loyal animal can. _Always for you._

Eventually they make their way into her home; the ground is soft underneath their feet and Santana sighs in pleasure as she strips her boots away, sinking her toes into the earth. Brittany sits heavily upon her bed, relishing at the chance to sleep in a proper place for once.

"Shall I fetch some hot water for your feet?" Mikhail asks, eyeing the blisters and hard, cracked soles. Santana waves him away, leaning her staff upon the wall and stretching wide.

"You have done enough, my friend," she replies, beginning to unlace her collar. "Go get some rest."

He bows with a hidden smile. "As you wish. Good night, both of you."

_Goodnight_, they chorus, and with a quiet sound of closing doors they are left alone.

Brittany lasts only a few seconds before struggling upright and limping behind Santana, snaking her arms around her waist and running her nose up the elegant slope of her neck. The girl in front of her shudders and leans back slightly, careful not to place too much weight upon her lover. "Finally alone," Brittany sighs out, smiling fondly when Santana turns her face to look properly upon her.

"What is it you so wanted to do that you waited until we were alone?" Santana teases, caught by surprise when Brittany leans forward and captures her lips in a kiss that soon becomes searing; dark hands wind themselves in light hair, and she groans as pale lips nip at her ear, a long tongue running up the seam of her vein that throbs in time to her tumultuous heartbeat. Brittany thinks that Santana should always look like this—flushed, breathless, eyes black with arousal.

"That," she teases back, yelping as Santana pushes her back to the bed and clambers overtop, her slim legs bracketing her hips. Santana grins at her, her dark hair shrouding them in a halo that belongs to no one else on the earth.

"As much as I would like to..." she starts, trailing her fingers along Brittany's collarbone and down the valley of her breasts, spreading out like blooming vines across her abdomen until her palms press heavy and warm upon her navel, "and I know _you _would like to..." she continues, leaning in so close that her breath brushes against Brittany's lips. Brittany holds her breath, eyes roaming everywhere at once to remember the image of a goddess atop her. "I am..."

A grin. "Really, truly tired."

Brittany stares blankly at her for a moment before scoffing in disbelief, bringing her minutely trembling hands to Santana's stomach with an incredulous raise of brows. "Did you really just—" she sputters, feeling the area between her legs still throbbing uncomfortably even as Santana laughs above her. "You little rat!" Her fingers dig into Santana's ribs and the priestess squeals, twisting in an attempt to get away from Brittany's wiggling hands. But her revenge is swift and unkind; she tickles Santana until she begs for mercy, chest tight from laughter and breathless. As she presses down upon her hips, Brittany winces in pain.

"See?" Santana says knowingly. "You are not fit for such things right now."

Brittany pouts, crossing her arms over her chest like a petulant child. "Doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy it regardless," she says with mock-anger, turning up her nose when Santana brushes apologetic kisses across her jaw.

"We want you to get better, Britt," Santana murmurs into her ear; Brittany melts at the shortened name and relents, wrapping her arms around Santana's waist. "Now help me undress. I want sleep and I want it now." Brittany gulps but aids her regardless (when would she ever say no to that?), picking at Santana's laces and tugging her robe up over her head. Her cloak is strewn over the floor and partly over Sandalio, who huffs in annoyance and curls up further into a ball. Santana, for her part, is gentle when she removes Brittany's clothes, taking her time to pull down her leather greaves without jostling her hip.

She's knocked slightly from her cool demeanour when Brittany worms her way out of the rest of her clothes, however.

"What are you doing?" she sputters, and averts her eyes as Brittany, naked as the day she was born, stretches out gingerly upon their bed and throws her arms leisurely behind her head. The warrior grins wickedly at the flush in her companion's cheeks.

"Sleeping, like you said," she replies innocently, burrowing under the thick covers. "Are you not tired anymore?"

Santana turns to glare but clears her throat instead as she spies a milky thigh, separated from the fur blanket the rest of her body is under. It leaves too little for the imagination; the curve of her pelvis can be seen, too, sharp against her skin with a kind of feminine strength.

Brittany has _nice_ hips.

"Of course I am," she insists. "But sleeping is not an option when you... when you're..."

Brittany rolls her eyes, turning onto her side where she props her head up on her hand. "You southerners are so very strange," she muses. "It isn't like I plan on ravishing you in your sleep, though that does sound like a terribly appealing option." She grins as Santana's blush worsens. "We have the same parts, San. It won't bite... having teeth down there would be painful." Her nose crinkles at the thought, and Santana can't help but let out a snort of agreement.

"What is the difference now? You showed yourself to me a few days ago." Santana plays nervously with the sleeves of her robe, taking comfort in the fur between her fingers and the strength the wolf bestows upon her.

"It... it was not like _this,_" she stresses, still feeling foolish when Brittany gives her a comforting smile.

"You can even wear your clothes to bed, if you like," Brittany offers kindly, patting the mattress beside her. "Just come here, it feels strange to have you so far away."

Santana gives in and approaches, her feet soothed by the soft ground beneath them. With Brittany laying there, so giving and open, it seems silly to deny them both of what they want from some long ingrained notion of propriety that has no place in a different culture. Perhaps she's still unaware of how the Norse work sometimes, but she always knows how Brittany does. It's why she pulls her silk slip up over her head before she has time to think about it, sliding into bed with a shy smile and letting Brittany's appreciative gaze wash over her body.

"Beautiful," Brittany murmurs, sliding close and licking her fingers to extinguish the candlelight. The room is plunged into darkness; a small shaft of moonlight shines through, illuminating the very ends of Santana's hair. She gulps as she feels Brittany's body press fully against her, almost feverish with her skin so close—wiry hair brushes against her thigh and she resists the urge to gasp, instead sucking in a sharp stream of air through her nose.

She feels her companion shift away—even in the dark, she senses her concern. "Is this too much?" Brittany asks worriedly, finding Santana's face in the gloom. She had simply wanted to be close to her, but she would gladly don her shirt once again if it made her feel better. Yet she feels Santana shake her head and pull her closer despite the slight trembling of her muscles.

"No, I... I like feeling you this way," Santana says, insisting with a gentle press of her thigh to the place between Brittany's legs. It pulses slightly and Brittany starts, but it's more calming than anything. She stretches out, pressing their fronts together, legs tangling loosely under the covers. Brittany smiles as the heartbeat between her thighs settles, drifting off into a steady rhythm as she loses herself to the excitement of the day. Despite Santana's professions of exhaustion, she is the first one to sleep.

Santana, for her part, traces her hands idly over Brittany's strong back, relishing in the muscle presented to her. Never has she touched another more intimately; her companion's soft breasts press against her own and her breath brushes against her shoulder, the hair against her thigh tickling but not irritating. She wonders for a fleeting moment if this is what forever could be like if the war is won, holding Brittany in the dark and feeling like nothing in her life would have more meaning.

She'd be fine with that.

* * *

><p><strong>November 1<strong>**st****, 912**

With Santana gone to visit Noach, Brittany relaxes in a wooden tub filled to the brim with steaming water, Mikhail rubbing soap into her dirty hair. She groans in satisfaction as his strong hands massage her scalp, his thumbs working at the knots both in her locks and her neck. Yesterday had been Samhain and possibly the worst nightmare ever to descend upon them—Santana had screamed and thrashed in the middle of the night, her knee planting itself in Brittany's injured hip repeatedly as her companion struggled to keep her down. It took her hours to calm down, finally rolling over and vomiting the blackness into a bucket where she had fallen back, exhausted, and drifted off into oblivion. Brittany had remained awake for hours, nursing the long, red scratches that had bloomed along her biceps. She prays that with Samhain over with, her nightmares will settle once again. She never thought she'd wish for the silent nights where Santana ceased to breathe, but...

"You seem worried," Mikhail observes, smoothing his rough palms over her slender shoulders and digging his fingers into the tense muscle. She winces, but relents, allowing his hands to work their magic upon her. The water sloshes as the lolls her head forward, the once clear liquid turning grimy with the dust of the road. "Is everything alright?"

In truth, nothing's been alright for a long time. Here once again, the reality of the situation is starting to fall upon her; a war is coming. She has been in battles, surely, but they were against villagers unversed in the way of the sword, towns that fought only briefly before succumbing to their influence. These people that come to wipe away their heritage have trained for many years, much in the way she has; they have more forces and better equipment with the vigour of their God upon their broad shoulders. With Santana's struggles only adding to the strain, Brittany thinks she is coming apart at the seams.

"No," she says miserably, running her wet hands over her face. "There are too many things to do and not enough time in which to do them. I need to ensure the Sami arrive, root out the rest of the draugr, talk Toppurinn into leaving our livestock alone, prepare the women and children that have never held a spear, a-and—" Mikhail's hands are over her collarbone, spreading his warmth and weight as he pushes her back to the rim of the tub.

"Breathe, Bretagne," he whispers calmly, hugging her from behind as her lungs struggle for air. "Breathe, _vinur_. Calm down." She takes a few gulping breaths and clutches onto his hand that has spread itself hard over her sternum, anchoring her to the earth. Eventually her heart rate returns to normal and she rests her wet head on his shoulder. "Thank you," she says quietly, sighing when he strokes her hair.

Mikhail gently rinses the soap from her hair, uncaring of the suds that have now travelled to his shirt. "What is this really about?" he asks her, drawing a cloth down the length of her arms. The guilty furrow of her brows give her away. "This is about Santana, is it not?" At the way her shoulders slump, he knows he's hit the mark.

"I just... I worry so," she professes, barely noticing as he passes the cloth across her breasts—they are so accustomed to each other that nary anything bothers them. "She grows different with each day. She... she is the same with me, truly, but with others..."

Mikhail hums in an effort to get her to continue; when she does not, he picks up her sentence. "She becomes cruel," he fills in knowingly, getting her to turn her body. "I hear her insults."

"In that village, there was something there with us," Brittany hushes, awkwardly raising her bad leg over the rim of the tub. "I felt it, I saw it. I know she did too, that must be why she refuses to talk of it."

"Perhaps she does not want you to worry for her? She knows how much rests on your shoulders," he offers, dipping the cloth between her legs fleetingly. It feels nothing like the tentative push of Santana's thigh to the same place, and she takes comfort in the normalcy.

She scoffs, wiggling her toes so that he may find the crevices between. "I always worry. If it hurts her, Mikhail..."

He shushes her before she can finish her thought, squeezing out the rag and dirty water into the basin. "Do not think that way, _vinur,_" he encourages. "I am sure she knows what she is doing. Santana has always been terribly independent for somebody of her age."

"She is," she smiles fondly. "I love her more than words can say, even with her more infuriating qualities."

His hands stutter only momentarily, continuing his resumed massage of her shoulders. In all truth, he had seen the romance blooming between them both long before they had, only confirmed by Eyja's quiet observation that the two of them are soul-bound in ways that few beings are. While it is strange and perhaps distasteful in some eyes, he always knew Bretagne was never fit to marry and settle, her spirit too free and her sensibilities too untamed. All he knows is that she saved him once, and because of that, he will support her until he draws his final breath.

"I know," he says quietly to her, smiling when she turns her nervous eyes do him.

"You do?" Brittany asks tentatively, a grin forming when he nods. She attempts to turn around and hug him, succeeding only in sloshing water all over his shirt and causing a faint blush to burn on his cheeks.

"As much as I love you too, you are currently quite wet and naked," he hints, hearing a sudden _oh_ as she draws away and sinks back into the water. Mikhail chuckles, shaking out his shirt the best he can, eventually yanking it over his body and wringing it out over her head. Brittany starts and splashes water at him in retaliation; soon enough the two of them are fighting, spreading the bath all over her room and leaving very little in the tub. Her limp has gotten better over the past few days, and at this moment she can barely feel it.

Mikhail ducks a particularly hefty swing on her part that sends the contents of a whole bucket flying, sailing through the air and soaking somebody who most definitely isn't him. Brittany freezes, bucket still in her outstretched arms, and grins sheepishly at Santana's completely unamused expression staring back.

"Sorry?" she tries, grinning even more when Santana slowly brushes wet strands of hair from over her eyes. "I can explain, honest."

"You can explain later," Santana says in a tone that's meant to be taken seriously, but the small twitch of her lips deceives her. "Your father wants to see you."

"Me? Why did he send you?" Brittany asks curiously, placing down the bucket that received such a dirty look from her priestess who shrugs in response.

"I was available, perhaps. He was going to send Finngeirr, but I knew you were taking a bath." The jealousy in her tone makes Brittany's lips curl into a smirk. She waits for them at the threshold, laughing as Mikhail attempts to don his ruined shirt and finds that it sticks to his frame; winter has come and the chill is cold, biting at the noses of the northerners. He shivers slightly, though his smile is bright. Once Brittany is ready despite several mishaps (_no, Britt, you have to wear shoes_), the trio make their way down to the blue longhouse, where the roar of Toppurinn's laughter alerts them to the fact the two giants are already inside.

Betar takes in their bedraggled appearance with raised brows but says nothing, instead releasing Mikhail to warm himself by one of the many braziers and beckoning the two girls over to his side. "Bretagne!" he says warmly, nodding at Santana who returns the sentiment. "Are you hungry? I have news to share."

"I ate, father," she declines, propping herself up on his chair instead to look down upon him and his bushy beard. "What news is this?"

"Well... as you know, many things have been happening recently. It seems Harald has grown weary of waiting and sails instead into Sviar, where he will march his army down to Kaupang," he reveals with a grimace. All the worries of the morning come rushing back, but he hastens to reassure her. "However, Haraldr Hárfagri has personally requested an audience for Kaupang."

Her brows raise. "The king? Truly?"

"Yes! With his aid, our forces could swell double! We would match Harald in numbers, if not outrank him." Betar looks entirely pleased with himself, rubbing his massive hands together in delight and already plotting new plans to bolster the village. "He wants this soon, as he should. Time waits for no man."

"Or woman," she adds. "Who are you sending?"

"Haraldr wants someone invested in the battle," Betar says, eyes shifting from side to side. "Someone trusted to both me and him."

"He sends you," Santana fills in, tired of the avoiding. Brittany stares at him blankly for a moment before protesting so whole-heartedly it reminds them of the weeks before they left for Breiðvík.

"But—" she sputters, standing up the best she can. "We just barely arrived home!"

"What would you do here?" he counters. "Bretagne, please do not argue with me, not here."

"Why not here?" she demands. "I can hardly walk. Do you expect me to impress a king like this?"

"The giants will carry you for most of the journey, it should only take a few days."

Toppurinn pauses in his eating. "We will? You never consulted us with this." His brother elbows him so hard the frost covering his carapace crunches, and he falls silent with a glare.

"Do we really have to go?" she asks miserably, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. Santana's whole body aches being unable to go and comfort her like she wishes. "I miss Kaupang."

"And it misses you," Betar says softly. "But if the king is not impressed, then there will be no Kaupang to return to in a few moons. You know you are the only one that can do this."

Brittany chews anxiously on her lower lip. "Only if Santana comes with me."

"Perhaps bringing a priestess is not—" But Brittany has put her foot down and she refuses to budge; he sees the stubborn fire in her eyes as well as it was seen on her mother so many times before.

"Only if she goes," she repeats. After a few tense moments where neither will wished to break, he relents.

"Fine," he sighs, taking a long pull of his mead. "You leave tonight. Do what you must before then."

Fuming, she makes for the steps, but his voice halts her. "I have something to tell you when you return," he informs her, smiling at the way her face lifts slightly in intrigue.

"What is it?" she asks, much like she always had in her youth, but he simply shakes his head.

"You will know when you return from Sæheimr." His voice sounds hopeful, but she doesn't miss how his eyes roam to catch the gaze of another in the room. Yet, when she looks, she finds nothing of interest. (Why does it feel like he is hiding something?) Brittany narrows her eyes at him suspiciously but relents, not wanting another nobleman to begin his blasted whispering. "You have the prisoner to thank for it."

Her eyebrows furrow in confusion. "What prisoner?" she asks curiously, glancing at Santana who shrugs herself. Perhaps the faceless man taken in her dream many suns ago?

"Ah, yes... that reminds me." Betar looks around and beckons a thrall closer. "Have the priest moved to another hold," he orders thoughtfully, stroking at his beard. "His muttering irritates the others. Place him in the barns, if you must."

This time it is Santana who looks to him with dark, dark eyes. "Priest?" she says slowly, her mind slowly drawing together a picture of jowls and blond hair. "What priest?"

Betar waves his hand. "Harald had sent two priests to try and persuade us to let them dock. We declined... one is still here, the other is rotting in the sea. Nothing to concern yourself over."

But... no, he was the one that she saw, the one that paced and muttered and reached into the cage they keep her mother in like an animal, trapped with no way to escape. The notion that he is _here _within her reach sets a fire alight in her belly; Brittany spies the first flickerings bloom around her fingers and is quick to prevent it, jerking her from her musings with a thought that pierces through her anger.

"Where is he?" Santana asks, voice deceptively light. "I wish to see him."

But Betar sees the darkness in her eyes and refuses to indulge her; they might need him eventually. He knows not what the priestess can do, not anymore, but he has sensed the change in her as clearly as the change in his daughter. It is ruthless, less forgiving. If he has something that she wants, she will pull it from his very soul.

"He is guarded now, and no one is allowed in. It would be best to forget about him," the jarl says, surprised when she takes a step forward.

"I do not think you understand, Jarl Betar," she states, irritation seeping into her tone. "This man knows of my mother's fate. I _need_ to see him."

Betar sits up straighter in his chair, his hands planting themselves upon the armrests. "You will see him when the rest of us do—when he is sacrificed as an offering for the coming winter," he insists with a tone that leaves no room for argument.

(Santana has decided to be particularly obtuse today, Brittany observes, as her stance becomes perhaps even more combative.)

"I want to know if that swine has harmed her!" she shouts angrily. "If he was Brittany's captor, you would have carved the flesh from his bones! I will find him myself and pull my answers from him!" The world is beginning to spin in dizzy circles; the braziers dim and the sun retracts and the world seems darker, sucked of all its luster. She turns on her heel, making to run from the room, but Betar's roar follows her.

"You will do no such thing!" he thunders, raising from his seat. "You will face punishment if I find him harmed, as any others would who disobey my orders!"

Brittany catches her just at the doors, trapping her arms together and pinning her to the wall.

"Let me go, Brittany," she grunts angrily, straining and pushing at her hold; despite being wounded, the warrior's strength is superior, and she holds strong against the struggle.

"You aren't thinking straight, Santana," she hisses into her ear, pressing her harder against the wall, "this will solve nothing."

"It will solve _everything_!" she counters, almost breaking free until Brittany yanks her back.

"Would it?" Brittany challenges. "Would it bring your mother back? Would it deliver her to your feet like a gift wrapped in linen?"

Despite her head understanding Brittany's reason, the dark thing in her chest strains angrily at the thought of being thwarted. "It would tell me if she was injured, if she needed help..."

"Is it help you can give her?" Brittany asks gingerly, breathing a quiet sigh of relief when her struggling slows. "I know you miss her and worry for her—I _know_, I feel it in you as much as I would feel it in myself. But getting yourself in trouble helps her none, my love."

Brittany holds her breath as she murmurs the affectionate nickname, but Santana is too busy fighting her own demons to notice. So instead she strokes at her hair, shielding her from the probing eyes of the hall, supporting her weight the best she can (like she always has) while she struggles. "This is just like the village, San. Come back to me."

Santana stills completely, her breath heavy against Brittany's neck. The world comes back in a rush—being underwater for too long, stepping into the flame of a candle after years of darkness. Her cheeks redden as she feels the watching gaze of so many strangers upon her, judging her for her faults and nothing else.

So instead she clings close, resigning herself to leaving her questions unanswered as they are led out of the room by Mikhail's guiding hands and out into the open air. The sun regains its light. (But the thing that wants still says _no_, and Santana knows he will be hers in time.)


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: So this happened because I'm in the middle of my England vacation and we just went to see Lindisfarne, known for the first Viking raid on Northumbria. Also, we coincidentally went to see Jorvik today (a large Viking center that is now called York) and it gave me a really good mental map on what Kaupang looks like currently, as well as the other villages past and present.

Also, my god did it stink. Have I mentioned that? Because it does. Poor people.

We're nearing the pinnacle (sort of) people! Are you excited yet? I am!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 19<strong>

**and in the winter night sky ships are sailing**

**looking down on these bright blue city lights**

** November 2nd, 912**

It turns out that the jarl was incorrect; the king had recently returned from a visit to his son, Bjorn, who lives in Sæheimr, and was now back in Avaldsnes where he resided permanently. It was a few day-walks more than anticipated, and the village watched Brittany's mood grow blacker as she realized she would have to spend even more time away from home. She has taken refuge in Eyja's home, scowling at the hearth while nursing a cup of weak ale. The elder priestess frets around her, anxiously wringing her hands at the mud tracks the warrior's feet have left on the floor.

"Bretagne," she starts gingerly, "would you please place your shoes by the fire? They must be wet with all the muck." Though the cold is strangely intense for so early in the winter it does not stop the rainfalls they get during these months—it pours outside, reducing the roads to mud and the higher regions to slush. The giants are the only ones that do not seem to mind the pelting rain.

Brittany glances at her before yanking off her boots, placing the worn clothing by the fire. She'll need to use her winter ones soon enough, something to fight off the chill. Eyja sighs in relief even as her guest looks at her strangely.

"The floor is made of dirt, what does it matter if mud is brought inside?" she asks in confusion, sipping from her cup.

Eyja's hut is not one of the longhouses; those are privy mostly to the rich or those with many, many families living within them. Instead she has a little square house that sits just away from the main village upon a grassy hill, close enough that she may walk to the town square within a few minutes, but far enough away that the bustle affects her very little. Much how Brittany likes it. She has a little raised sleeping platform off to one side with a nice feather pillow to cushion the hard earth.

"I like to keep things orderly," Eyja responds primly, dusting off a light coat of dirt from one of her runes, "and doing so means keeping everything in order. Including the floor." Brittany shrugs in acquiescence, and they descend into a temporary silence.

In an effort to stave off the black cloud brewing over the young woman's head, Eyja claps her hands and sits up straight. "What is it you come here for, Bretagne?" she asks brightly. "Surely there is something I can do for you."

Brittany stares into the fire for a moment before looking down where Sandalio has placed his head gingerly upon her foot. He stares up at her worriedly, his cold nose poking at her ankle, his tongue licking at her skin. She wishes she could speak with him as Santana does. "Perhaps you could tell me what the future brings?" she muses thoughtfully. "Santana has no inherent ability for divination, it seems... or she no longer has it, plagued by her nightmares."

Eyja nods sympathetically. "How are those doing?" she enquires as she begins to bustle about, searching for the necessary items. A divination, it seems, might boost her spirits. (Or not, depending what the gods hold for her fate.)

"She is silent again, at least," Brittany replies, picking at her bracers, "but I think Styrr's presence makes it worse. I know she dreams of the burned village but refuses to say anything about it."

The priestess hums. "And the other nights?" she asks, gathering her materials in a little wooden bowl.

"Still no memory," Brittany sighs, rubbing at her eyes, "but sometimes I hear her mumbling things in the middle of the night."

"Like what?" Eyja sits herself opposite Brittany, sitting upon a neat stool so that a place rests between them. With careful hands she lights the bowl that is filled with alkanet, bought from the sandy lands of the south, allowing its purifying smoke to waft around the room and heat the bones nestled in their roots.

"Nothing in Norse," Brittany coughs, waving at the smoke that Eyja gusts into her face, "nor in Spanish. It almost sounds like someone is whispering something because they lack the breath to speak."

The elder priestess looks up, puzzled. "I didn't know Santana spoke more than two languages."

Brittany grimaces. "She doesn't."

Sandalio whines his agreement, burying his face in Brittany's calf.

Only once the smoke has filled the little space does Eyja shake her little bowl, the bones within rattling. She mutters things that Brittany doesn't catch, her brows drawn in concentration.

"Is there anything you wish to ask the gods?" Eyja asks of her, brushing her red hair back behind her eyes. Brittany bites her lip in indecision.

"Just... tell me what the future holds," she whispers, too frightened now to break the hazy spell that has settled upon their shoulders; the elder priestess casts the bones and the ash of the flowers onto her floor where they scatter haphazardly. It is an old practice, as ancient as these forests themselves—Rory had mentioned his father's forefathers did the same with the sacred branches of a nut-bearing tree many years ago, long before her people knew the same. The will of the gods themselves reside in this casting.

Eyja leans forwards automatically, crouching down and scanning over the placement. Brittany bites at her nails, holding Sandalio back when he goes to sniff at the bones.

"A cross, here," Eyja points out the most prominent figure on the ground, "covered in ash. Many deaths follow it. Our enemy, I would assume."

Brittany nods and cautiously crouches beside her, attempting to see what she does. "The followers of the White Christ bear a cross in his name," she affirms softly, not daring to touch lest she disturb the lot. Eyja hums in her throat and passes her hands over the bones, trailing her fingers in the ash. (She would never do that if not for an important cause, Brittany notes.)

The elder priestess frowns, peering closer at the cast. "All the bones summoned are dark, see?" She points at the surface which has been seared by the fire, a blackness that contrasts with the white of their other, untouched side. "It is most visible here," she indicates to three bones, with one running down the middle and two on either side with an upwards slant, "it looks like a figure. Another mystic, or perhaps a valkyrja. They could be wings."

"What does it tell you?" Brittany asks fearfully. A valkyrja is never a good sign; they carry the dead off to the halls of Asgard after a fierce battle. Eyja strokes across her back sympathetically.

"You know what it means, Bretagne," she sighs, "you have been in battles as much as anybody else. People will die. People have _already_ died."

But there is something nagging at her with the way the bones are all black, tainted. "What if it isn't a valkyrja?" she asks instead, squinting at the shapes that seem to make sense only to Eyja. "What if it is a person, like you said before?"

"Then there will be dark magic or dark gods," Eyja replies, standing up to rummage about upon her shelves, "and at this point, I could not tell you which would be worse for your chances. Either is a bad omen." She returns with a blank stone, much like the one Santana used to have before it simply... vanished.

"I will create a rune for you," she explains at the warrior's confused expression, "in hopes that it will appease the gods or ward away the evil that these bones say will come. I use the same symbol of the valkyrja, the rune Algiz." Eyja carefully chisels it into the stone face and anoints it with bear's blood, delicately rubbing it into the freshly carved rune and letting it settle. Brittany had never been a big believer in runes and herbs until Santana came along; she feels the power in her staff and knows it comes from her jewels, glistening in the light.

The elder priestess gingerly hands it to her, enfolding it in her large palm. "Use this when you are fearful and it will give you courage," she advises, "or when you are vulnerable and it will give you protection. But please... do not let Santana touch it."

Brittany frowns, rubbing her thumb over the rune. "Why not?"

Eyja sighs quietly. "Algiz is a rune of protection and courage, true, but it is also a rune of the gods," she explains quietly. "It opens us to other worlds and allows us better communication with our spiritual selves. But Santana... she is being visited by something other than us, and the separation between them is so thin as it is. If she was allowed to use this, well," she gives a humourless smile, "it is quite possible she would go completely mad."

Brittany drops the rune like it scalds her. "A stone can do that?" she whispers urgently, her voice pitching high in alarm. "Why are you giving this to me? You know we share everything!"

The older woman hastens to hold Brittany's trembling hands. "I know, Bretagne, but so does she. I have no doubt that Santana wishes to keep this other force away as much as we, and once she knows what this rune does, she will avoid it herself. She suffers enough."

Brittany bites her lip. "You promise it won't affect her because it is around her?"

Eyja smiles. "No, Bretagne. She would have to use it herself for it to have any effect."

It soothes her doubts, and Brittany smiles in return as she drops the stone into her pocket. "I appreciate it," she thanks her, making to get up, "such a trip is a dangerous one."

"No more dangerous than your previous journey," Eyja replies humorously, gathering her things once again. Such a mess upon the floor...

"Yes, well—" Brittany rises to one knee and a yelp sounds behind her—she turns just in time to see Sandalio cowering back from where her elbow had hit his nose. She turns quickly and pouts, gently scratching at his ears.

"I'm sorry, boy," she says softly, gently wiping at his bloody nose, "I thought you were out of the way. Forgive me?"

He gingerly licks at her jaw and she smiles, rubbing her hands through his fur in apology until his tail thumps happily once again. They bid farewell to Eyja and leave with higher spirits, the rune safe in Brittany's pocket.

A small spatter of blood dries upon the valkyrja.

* * *

><p>The winter winds cast the sea against the docks of Kaupang, its waves reaching up and lapping upon the slick wood. Upon all other sides the mountains yawn with great jagged teeth that cut the skyline into fractures, but here, the endless body of water stretches far further than anything else in Nor Veg. Santana watches the ebb and flow with impassive eyes.<p>

Much has changed in the month she has been gone; now able to discern that the darkness felt across the ocean was the hatred of a thousand marching men, it has spread and swelled, tainting the water with its shadow and bringing its influence further. She sees it go east to Sviar, but she also senses that some of it has broken off and branched west... what could be that way that the white men want? Nothing but more Nor Veg, and the ragged coastline of fjords that are more of an obstacle than a conquest. It worries her—they, too, head west, west to Avaldsnes and a king with no face to his name. They call him Tanglemane here as much as King.

(She has learned not to trust lords and kings. They want nothing more than wealth and fame and all the power that these two things bring.)

Noach's ship is still docked, willing but unready to leave. The unnaturally early winter storms had brought with it ice that rained down from the sky, smashing through masts and hulls. Many merchants are stuck in a foreign land on the brink of war and nervously await the first signs of battle. They had missed it in Finnmork where a heavy layer of snow had already covered their world, but here, where the rain pelts down upon the villagers, there is nothing to show a storm had passed save for the damages. It seems the weather is anxious too, waiting for blood to spill and soak the earth.

Santana sighs, cradling a small flame in her palms for warmth. In truth she wants to go to Avaldsnes no more than Brittany, her whole body weary from travel, but remains silent in hopes that it will prevent another spat. Betar trusts her no longer—she sees him watch her, the suspicion in his gaze that was once only curiosity. It irritates her, but not enough to risk an interruption between the tenuous peace father and daughter have forged. She knows how much it hurts Brittany to have her father so occupied with everything, yet so oblivious to the rift he creates. (Some part of her knows what he will say when they return. She wishes it weren't so.)

They are mere hours from departing; her new pack is slung securely over her shoulders, a solid frame made of ash and deer-hide with forged metal rings to hold it together. Anvindr had made Toppurinn his own pack, a massive thing that is as wide as she is tall, capable of holding nearly anything. The giants—_jotnar? _she no longer distinguishes between her own language and that of the north—have an appetite that could swallow the world.

"Waiting to say goodbye, priestess?" She could recognize that voice anywhere, but it no longer angers her the way it used to. Instead she sighs, not bothering to turn as Styrr steps beside her. He is as ageless as ever, his pale eyes striking from underneath his dark hood. Santana holds out her hand to increase her flame and he hums, appreciative. It seems those under the spell of darkness still feel the chill.

"Hardly," Santana responds, studying the gently cresting waves. "I've said my goodbyes to all that matter. We should return in a few days regardless."

Styrr chuckles, leaning upon his own staff. She notes his baubles are black, like onyx. Weren't they colourful some time ago? (Hers look like that now, corruption stealing in tendrils and tainting the insides black as sin.) "You wound me, girl. Surely you were meaning to bid me a farewell too."

A dark eyebrow raises. "Are you leaving before the war? I never thought you the cowardly type."

"I would, but my master has other plans," he sighs instead, gazing almost wistfully out into the ocean. "I will stand and fight with them, even if they did try to kill me a few suns ago."

Santana turns fully to him then. "They did?" she asks, incredulous. "When? Did they finally realize that _you_ are the bad omen here, not I?"

"It was nothing about that," Styrr scoffs, "but rather the fact that magic working here is a woman's craft. I told you many moons ago that gender makes no difference to my master or to me, but it is viewed unmanly. _Galdr_ is a noble art for either gender, true, but seiðr is _ergi_." She had heard the word before, early on—it is akin to being disgraced, doing something womanly and tainting hard-earned honour. It had never been a problem for Brittany, having an inherently different sense of honour as a woman in a man's world, but it seems not so much for Styrr.

"I thought you lied and said you practised _spae_ instead." Though still a woman's art, _spae_ was able to be mastered by either gender. Divining has no discrimination.

A wry smile. "It seems they saw through that."

They stand in silence for a moment, but Santana's curiosity always finds the better of her judgement. "If they tried to kill you, why are you still here?" she asks instead, trying not to sound as interested as she is. Yet Styrr sees through her as he always does, smirking in that infuriating way.

"My work is not yet done here," he reveals cryptically, clasping his hands together around his staff, "and I have no intent of running. I will stay." He tilts his head to look at her. "I might be old, but I am not yet immortal, and have no wishes to die in these next few moons," he says seriously, "so ensure that incompetent king sends everything he has here to help. Scare him into submission if you must."

Santana snorts. "Yes, because a priestess like me makes a king shake in his boots. Utterly terrifying."

A dark cloud passes over the sun, blocking its light. The days have grown short and sparse so close to winter—in Finnmork, the sun dares not even rise above the arctic plains and leaves the land in perpetual darkness. The way Styrr relaxes in the shadow tells her that he does not mind the bitter winters.

"People fear the unknown, priestess," he advises her, "and there is nothing about you that is familiar. Use it to your advantage, even if you must pretend. It will all come to fruition eventually."

"I remember you saying something like that to me moons ago," Santana mutters in irritation. "Look what good it did. I barely sleep through the night."

Styrr hums, turning from her. "It clings to the warmth your blood gives away." Before she can open her mouth to ask, he beats her to it. "Mine turned cold long ago. Good luck, priestess." She watches him go, bringing the darkness behind him until the clouds clear once again and light returns to the world. It's strange how he has stopped intimidating her, turning almost into an old acquaintance rather than the enemy. She supposes that with so many threats looming on the horizon, he has lost his place as priority.

(Or perhaps he has simply wormed his way so deep she doesn't notice him anymore. Either one is equally unsettling.)

A warming in her chest alerts her to the presence of another; moments later long arms wrap around her waist, a subtle kiss placed below her ear. Santana smiles and leans back into Brittany's body, her head cradled by the firm girdle of her shoulder. "What did he want?" Brittany's breath ghosts along her outstretched neck, protective. Santana shivers.

"Just words of advice," she responds equally low, tilting her head she she can look into Brittany's eyes, "nothing to be concerned about. It seems he wishes to live through this war as much as we do."

"The big bad Styrr, afraid of death?" Brittany smiles into her skin. "Who would have thought? Seems he has some human in him after all."

Santana snorts, turning around in her hold and draping her arms around her neck. She relishes the brief moments they have together before they go back to simply being friends, away from the eyes of the village. The docks are abandoned on such a miserable day, and she smooths her damp blond hair away from her face with care. Brittany smiles and kisses her palm in thanks, running her thumbs along Santana's hipbones and relishing in her closeness. "I don't think death is the thing he fears, Britt," she responds quietly, eyeing his retreating figure, "not somebody like him."

Brittany raises her eyebrow in confusion. "What else could it be?" she asks curiously, but Santana has no more answers than her. So instead she shrugs, playing with the thick blue gambeson Brittany chose to wear, damp with rain.

"Are we leaving soon?" Santana asks, snapping her fingers so the flame flares and burns away some of the wetness. Brittany shivers in thanks and leans closer.

"The jotnar are waiting for us," she affirms with a sigh. "None too pleased at being dragged out once again, but waiting. Toppurinn has been complaining about his hunger for hours now."

"He eats more than you," Santana teases, giggling when Brittany huffs, and steals a quick kiss in her distraction.

"You don't mind what I eat," Brittany mutters in retaliation, her palm smoothing over Santana's rear and squeezing firmly. Her priestess gasps low and jerks, her hips pressing against Brittany's thigh at the suddenness of her arousal. "Brittany," she warns, even as the other hand joins the first, a warm tongue laving the crook of her jaw with attention, "not here. There are—ngh—_people _around."

Her objection is weak at best—the driving rain has led the village to take cover in their homes, the main reason why she allows her so close in the first place. Brittany seems to realize this as well as she, for moments later she feels the smirk on her skin and the thoughts flitting through her companion's head, the images alone enough to make her whimper quietly in her throat. (It's becoming harder and harder to deny her, to be hesitant with her touches. Brittany's hands grow bold as they map Santana's body and she wants more of her, always and forever.)

"I believe you imagine things, Santana," she responds cheekily, humming in satisfaction when dark hands grab a handful of her braid and tug sharply, the pleasant pain prickling all through her body. Santana growls and nibbles at her bottom lip, sucking at the bruised flesh until it turns red and swollen. Marked.

_Mine._

Brittany groans, pulling her further into her own body.

_Yours._

Her hand moves to slip under Brittany's leather jerkin, but the moment is broken as a furry form brushes along her legs. Santana breaks away, panting, staring down at Sandalio who watches them with the equivalent of an unamused expression. She feels watched by a disapproving parent.

"What?" she mutters self-consciously, smoothing back her ruffled hair. He yips at her and bounces around them both, worming his way between them so that Brittany may readjust her skewed breeches without the temptation of Santana so close. Brittany sighs, scratching behind his ears. "You always get in the way at the worst times," she grumbles affectionately, sputtering when she receives an earful of the wrong tongue. He wags at them both.

_He comes, mistress! _he tells Santana, looking to the mountains. _The Red One comes for you!_

When Betar's figure becomes visible moments later, Santana thanks the stars and the sky for Sandalio and his impeccable interruptions.

The atmosphere dissolves into silence as he stops just before them, his beard dripping from the rain. Even sodden as he is, the jarl is something of an intimidating sight, his eyes travelling over his daughter and her reddened lips to her companion who avoids his eyes. He looks between them for a moment, frowning, before casting off his confusion as nothing. "Are you ready?" he asks instead, crossing his broad arms over his chest as if it would do anything to shield him from the storm.

"Of course," Brittany responds, needlessly checking her axe and spear. Eyja's stone sits in her pouch as a constant reminder of the journey they've yet to take. "We were just leaving."

Betar nods in approval, looking between them again for a moment before sighing. "After the war, Bretagne, I promise I will send you no further. You may stay in Kaupang for as long as you desire. This is something that _needs_ to be done."

"I understand," is the brusque reply, a frown already beginning on fair brows. "I may not be the best choice, but I am the only one."

"That isn't true," Betar rebukes earnestly, "you _are_ the best one. You are my blood, my daughter. Who better to represent Kaupang?"

Brittany looks at him sullenly. "What about you?"

"I—" Betar frowns. "You know I have to stay with the village, Bretagne. Especially now in times of tension. Going off to see the king in a time of peril would do no good for anybody."

Yet, it seems everyone save Betar knows of Brittany's fear of failure, of disappointing the king with her whimsical words and delivering no aid unto her people. Santana cannot talk them out of (or into) trouble like with the centaurs, nor with the village to the north. It will be all upon her shoulders, a girl who sometimes can't remember what she had for supper last eve. "Besides," Betar says with confidence, "who better to go see the king than the future jarl of Kaupang?"

Brittany blinks in panic, biting her lip so hard it reddens again. A woman has never been a jarl before, not truly... and even if it were so, she is not fit to be the one to do such a thing. (She knows what she wants, and it has nothing to do with leading and everything to do with leaving.)

"I, ah... women are never jarls," she blurts out in an effort to shrug off the title, glancing helplessly to Santana. Her priestess shrugs nervously. A foreigner has no dealings in leadership either.

Betar looks at her curiously. "You've defied everything a woman is supposed to be up to now," he says with raised brows, "what would make this any different?"

She's saved from any further questioning by a boulder making itself known on the horizon—this boulder ends up being Toppurinn, shamelessly eavesdropping on their conversation for the past few minutes. He groans exaggeratedly and looks up to the dreary sky, laughing when they all jump high in the air. "Are we leaving sometime this age? I feel myself melting away!" His complaint drifts over to them and Brittany lets out a relieved sigh.

"We should return in less than a fortnight... hopefully with more allies than have now," she says, refusing to make eye-contact as she grabs Santana by the hand and drags her along, her limp making its first appearance of the day. "Hopefully no more priests will come along while we're away! Farewell, father!" Betar waves at her with a puzzled expression as the two almost sprint towards the giant that waits alone in the village square.

They sail past Toppurinn who ambles to catch up, his footfalls earthquakes upon the ground. Only when they reach a safe distance away does Brittany relax, her shoulders releasing their hunch from around her ears. Santana looks at her for a long moment with a smile playing at her lips.

"Subtle," she eventually states, causing Brittany's cheeks to bloom a warm red.

"He seems to ignore the fact that I have no business being a leader," the warrior sighs, allowing herself to be picked up by Toppurinn and gently placed over his shoulders. Santana curls up in his palm, watching her lover get comfortable on the now familiar perch. "He should get someone else to run Kaupang when he gets too old to do so."

Santana raises a curious eyebrow. "Like who? All the boys of your age are incompetent."

Brittany chokes on her laughter, trying unsuccessfully to stifle her mirth. "San!" she scolds half-heartedly, "be nice. It isn't their fault they have as many brains as a fro-" she coughs loudly, "-ire giant." Toppurinn seems to have missed the poorly covered insult and they both sigh in relief.

"Besides," Brittany picks up the conversation again, "they may be stupid, but they can fight. Around here you need that more than you need brains. Mikhail should be leader, he can do both."

They meet Stórhríð, who seats Santana upon his own shoulders, straightening up and looking to Brittany for guidance. He has been strangely quiet over the past few suns, studying her like he knows something she is not yet privy to. But his bond with Brittany has grown, the two of them often sharing quiet laughs over things Santana doesn't hear. It bothers her none, happy that she has found a friend so wise and powerful as he.

Santana laughs at the thought. "Mikhail? Good luck convincing the village that he should even become a _yeoman_, let alone a jarl. The poor boy has a collar three sizes too small."

Brittany pouts. "It's so unfair... his skin makes him no less of a person, just like yours."

Toppurinn wiggles Brittany's leg to catch her attention, muttering something of an apology when she winces. "What about our skin, little warrior? Does it make us less of a person?"

She looks at him curiously. "You have no skin. Are you even a person?"

For some reason she can't fathom the rest of them find it hilarious, and she crosses her arms in annoyance as they laugh for a good few minutes as they descend into the heart of the forests.

They've decided to forgo the roads yet again, unwilling to reveal the giants to the world just yet. A runner had been sent in advance to warn the king of who they bring, but they don't wish to risk word spreading out and reaching the enemy forces—surprise will be their biggest factor in this fight, alongside the speed in which they move through the country. Stórhríð estimates it should only take them three suns rather than seven to arrive at Avaldsnes, though this is with adequate sleep and time for eating. Brittany has brought along her bow: rarely used, but useful for hunting. Two giants eat more than she ever thought possible.

"Are you even able to shoot that?" Santana asks a few hours into their journey, watching Brittany oil the length of her bow in preparation for a hunt. "Your spear-throwing is impressive, but I've seen you drop things when you toss them to yourself."

Brittany clears her throat with embarrassment as Toppurinn snickers underneath her, cheeks pink. "Yes, Santana," she says through gritted teeth, glaring as her companion smiles innocently, "I can shoot a bow. Quite well, _thank you for asking_."

"But how are you going to stalk with your hip?" Stórhríð asks impassively, prompting Brittany to think. Deer hunting is out of the question... auroch perhaps, but only if they got close enough for Santana to blast it full of fire and roast it where it stands. Still, there would be a chance it could charge and she has no intention of becoming the next hunter skewered on those deadly horns.

"I can shoot for birds when we make camp," she shrugs instead, clinging onto the giant when they bound over a steep hill, "that requires little walking. I should be healed soon enough."

"Are you sure?" Toppurinn mocks. "We want you to stay uninjured, little warrior. How can you shoot a bow if you drop things you pass to yourself?"

Brittany huffs angrily, bringing her fists down overtop his skull. "That was once and it was dark!" she exclaims loudly, whipping her head to glare at Santana, whose thoughts say otherwise.

"It was noon," Santana deadpans. "You threw a rock and hit yourself in the eye. Sandalio thought you fell over and was worried sick."

Brittany groans at Toppurinn's howl of delight, burying her face in his snowy hair.

_Just for that, you get no birds that I catch, _she mutters bitterly in her head, resisting the smile when Santana's answering laugh chimes in her mind.

_If your record of resisting me holds true, I will be the first one eating. _

It's hard to deny the truth, and Brittany sighs as they make their way further into the forests. She's gotten used to the rise and fall underneath her and soon enough the sun has begun to descend; the air takes on a crisper chill and her nose turns cherry-red from the frost. It isn't much later than noon, perhaps a few hours, but short days call for long, stretching nights. They've decided they will walk partly in shadow if they want to make good time, but the giants exert far more energy than they, and soon call for food.

"Time to put those shooting skills to the test," Toppurinn jeers as he lets her down—she snatches her bow from his belt in irritation and whistles for Sandalio, who worms his way from the little pouch and bounds around her in excitement. Hopefully he knows how to fetch.

Brittany sits on the edge of the little clearing as the others trample around, Santana breaking branches for their shelter and the giants lazing around doing nothing at all. Every so often a flutter of movement will catch her eye and an arrow will release—sometimes it hits a tree or flies into the brush, but other times there is a thunk and a squawk of pain, followed by silence. Sandalio will bark in excitement and disappear, only to emerge moments later with a dead bird of some variety clamped firmly in his jaws. (Getting him to let it go is another matter entirely.)

By the time darkness falls completely she has three quail laid out beside her and an unlucky rabbit, each of them nosed thoroughly by an interested dog. Satisfied, she drags herself over to the cheery white fire and sits close to Santana, purposely showering her with feathers that she pulls from the birds. Her priestess wrinkles her nose but in the action is laced with affection, helping Brittany to prepare them for the flame. It is quiet work, interspersed with a teasing thought or gentle touch, but it has been a long time since the two of them could simply lose themselves in each other quite like this. Santana chuckles when Brittany presents the carcasses with a flourish, opened up and laid out upon sticks where they will roast until the smell of meat drifts for miles.

"My _hero_," Santana drawls when they're finally laid on the flames to cook, "and here I thought I was going to starve to death." Brittany rolls her eyes and nudges her fondly with her hip, placing her bow out of harm's way.

"I am a woman of many talents," Brittany reveals wisely, side-eyeing Toppurinn as he inches towards their food, "capable in both types of flesh-pleasures."

Santana chokes on her waterskin, the droplets sizzling in the flames. _Brittany!_ she hisses so the others can't hear, turning on her with accusing eyes. _Hiding, remember?_

Brittany shakes her head dismissively. _Stórhríð has known almost from the beginning, _she tells her, checking the meat, _and then told Toppurinn. They are not of us and care not what we do, just like the centaurs._

_ But—_ Santana flails a little, feeling exposed.

_But what?_ Brittany challenges her. _Do you want them to be angry or disgusted and kill us, rather than accepting? It seems that is what you aim for every time you bring it up._

Santana looks at her, taken aback. Is that truly what Brittany thinks? _No, of course not, _she hastens to comfort her suddenly unsure looking companion. _I want nothing more than the world to accept us. But it is better to be safe and cautious than run into things hopeful, is it not? I find it so strange that your people are so welcoming..._

"Can the two of you stop mating with your minds?" Toppurinn interrupts them, his mouth full of undercooked quail. "There are more important things to do, like cooking these birds." Santana blushes crimson and coughs into her palm, while Brittany simply shrugs and throws a rock at him.

"Leave the damn birds alone," she grumps in mock irritation, "they are for all of us, not just for you."

Later, with the two of them tangled up together under their pine-woven shelter, Santana nudges Brittany awake with her mind.

_Are they truly fine with... us?_ She asks nervously, eyes casting to the shadows of the two giants who snore profusely and make it impossible to focus. Brittany yawns and burrows deeper into Santana's warmth, wrapping her long limbs around Santana's slender waist.

_The giants have no true notion of right or wrong when it comes to mating,_ she replies, her words muddled with sleep, _so long as it does not interrupt their own family line, it bothers them none. I could mate with hundreds of women and they would accept it._

A pause.

_Not that I would mate with hundreds of women. I only want you._

Santana chuckles, running her fingers through Brittany's fine hair. _Is it this way for all your people? _

A shrug is felt more than seen. _You were there with the centaurs. They are sexual beings and care little for the method in which things are done, only that they are done in the end. I think Quinn looked at you in a manner more than friendly a few times._

The priestess recoils, swatting Brittany's head. _Don't joke about things like that! I would rip apart that insufferable mare if I had the chance. _

_No you wouldn't, San._ Blue finally peeks out from the gloom, narrowed in amusement. _You liked her, even if you didn't like her enough to touch her chest._

Santana's cheeks warm, a clench in her belly reminding her exactly what is pressed up against her front. _You know as well as I do that there is only one chest I enjoy touching._

_It sure isn't your own._ Brittany settles back into her, lightly running her fingers over her spine. They pause as she frowns, however, shifting her head up to look more directly at Santana.

_There were two men in the village next to Kaupang once, _she recalls hazily, _who were much like us. They had no wives, only each other. It was rare back then, just as it is now. _ _I remember father talking about them once._

_What did he say? _Santana asks nervously, biting her lip. Brittany frowns in thought.

_He only disliked one of them... he said he had committed ergi by letting the other penetrate him and that he should be made a woman._

Again with _ergi..._ Santana tilts her head to the side. _What happened to them?_

Brittany shrugs. _I was too young and paid no real attention. I think they left the village because the man had no intention of reclaiming his honour. They were nice, though—one of them had such a pretty smile. _

_ Can a woman commit ergi?_ Santana asks curiously, to which Brittany has no answer. The North is still such a confusing place sometimes...

They lie in silence for a moment before Santana feels an impish grin against her collar. _Ergi is none of our concern anyway,_ Brittany reveals with a smirk, _because we are both women. Even if I had something to penetrate you with it would be okay. _Santana coughs at the images that float through her lover's mind, her fingers subconsciously flexing near the supple flesh of Brittany's chest. _In fact, it might give me honour! I would be just like the other men!_ Brittany peers up at her and Santana sees the mischief in her smile.

_Would you let me penetrate you, San?_ she asks innocently with a tone that is anything but, letting her hands trail up Santana's thighs. Santana gulps in a shaky breath of air as strong hands splay themselves wide against her hipbones, tracing gentle patterns into the skin of her belly and feeling the muscles jump under her touch. Brittany cups her hand firmly between Santana's legs, and pouts when she pulls it away to rest once again over her stomach. Even with the dim light of the fire she sees the flush on Santana's face as clear as day.

"Don't you want me to touch you?" Brittany murmurs into Santana's ear, tracing the shell with her tongue. It never ceases to amaze (and worry) Santana how Brittany can go from playful to sexual in the blink of an eye—this is new territory for them, far more advanced than anything before. She feels the heat from Brittany's body, smothering in the best of ways, and struggles to think past the haze of arousal that has descended over her thoughts.

Shamefully, she admits that she wants to be touched more than anything else. The place between her legs throbs with an almost foreign heartbeat, and she feels sticky and hot, aching for something she's unsure she could fill herself. Brittany's hands and mouth are so talented on the rest of her that she has no doubts of her skill—she could soothe the burn that's taken up place whenever they so much as graze, but... here isn't the place, not on the eve of a war and two large allies slumbering just feet away. Brittany's worth more than that.

(Besides, Santana has no idea what she's doing. She wants to make Brittany feel as good as she does, and to do that, she first needs to... experiment on herself.)

Santana gulps and pulls away just a little bit to look at her lover, eyes dark and dilated in the night. "Of course I do," she mutters back, mindful to keep her voice low, "but not now. You know how carried away we can get."

Incidents and near misses flood Brittany's mind—it's amusing when it's not so stressful.

Not like that's going to stop her from trying.

"But that would be the point," she pouts, leaning closer for effect. "I know you want me, San. I can feel it in my head and in my heart. I can—" she inhales deeply and releases a groan that she never intended to make, "oh gods, I can _smell_ how much you want me."

Santana flushes to the point where her head begins to spin. "Oh, _Goddess_," she huffs out heavily, trying not to bring her thighs together and further encourage her companion, "you'll be the death of me, Piersson." It feels like she's dying in the best possible way, her whole body throbbing and pulsing and craving.

Brittany grins wickedly, pressing her entire body against her. "I hope not," she breathes, "because then I won't get to touch you or taste you or see you like—"

Something rolls over and they both freeze, Brittany's leg halfway between Santana's own, heavy and incriminating. Santana's body screams at her to press just that little bit closer, and her hips betray her—they tilt down and she muffles a moan against Brittany's neck as her thigh presses firmly between her legs, hard and wanting. Brittany swallows, her own throat suddenly dry, as Santana's heat radiates to the point where she can feel it through her thick breeches. Her hands snake down and cautiously cup Santana's behind, pulling her more firmly against her leg and causing a squeak to escape.

She _knew_ she'd give in.

"Can you feel me through your robes?" Brittany mutters in her ear, careful to move as little as possible so that the pines rustle only a fraction. "I can feel you, moving with me. Do you like it?"

A quiet _uh-huh_ is all Santana can gasp out, clinging to the front of Brittany's gambeson for grounding. Everything is spinning, and her thoughts of waiting seem to have been abandoned in return for the pleasure that flushes through her every nerve, pulsating from the apex of her legs and spreading through her fingers and toes. She is enveloped in Brittany, wrapped in her embrace as her thigh pushes insistently until it feels as if they could merge into a singular being.

Brittany has very little idea of what she's supposed to be doing, but rocks with Santana regardless, content with watching her lover, usually so aloof and collected, writhe beside her. She feels the dampness begin to seep through her own breeches and groans, throwing her head back in an effort to keep herself together.

Her loud noise breaks through Santana's haze and she grunts, attempting to push herself away while simultaneously craving more. "Mm, Britt—" she sighs at a particularly hard jerk, "we have to— ah, stop—" yet her hands find themselves clinging onto Brittany's stark shoulder-blades, resting her forehead upon her damp collar.

"Why?" Brittany pants, almost growing frustrated enough to roll on top of her in an effort to find more friction. It's _just_ enough to drive her insane, but not enough to relieve her ache, though Santana seems to be finding what she needs.

"Because we have an audience," Santana pants, finally pulling herself away enough to put a tiny amount of distance between them. Brittany raises her brows and twists over to glance into the dark, where Toppurinn's glowing eyes watch them from the gloom. Santana's face burns with mortification, but she can't find it in herself to be panicked, far too aroused to think of it as a problem other than _Goddess, I feel so hot_.

They stare at each other for a moment and it's strangely like the cave on the way back to Finnmork, save for the reversed positions and the slightly more awkward outcome. Toppurinn shrugs, indifferent to their state of disarray. "By all means, carry on," he rumbles, "I find myself wondering how two females would mate."

Santana's quiet _ew_ alerts Brittany to the fact that she's not to be relieving this ache anytime soon and groans, throwing her head back onto her sleeping roll. With Santana's scent all in her furs and clothing, she's unsure how she'll sleep at all.

* * *

><p><strong>November 5<strong>**th****, 912**

The rain turned into snow on the second day, and the travellers amble into Avaldsnes weary and frozen. Night has descended and they walk in shadow, the great bulk of the giants mere shapes of deeper darkness that shift in and out of focus. Brittany slumps over Toppurinn's skull and sleeps uneasily, jostling every so often and grumbling as she bites her tongue and wakes. She blinks, wiping grit from her eyes, looking around at the slumbering village and eventually to the longhouse that smokes liberally at the far end. Its light cuts away the dark.

They silently turn and make their way towards it, spying not even a single person out so late at night. In Kaupang there are trades and deals going on far into the morn; Brittany finds it eerie how quiet such a large place is. Santana lights their way until they find themselves at the king's doorstep.

"Be careful," Brittany murmurs to all of them before ducking through the threshold, leaving the giants to sit by the small doorway. In here is the quiet whispering of a dozen voices too caught up in themselves to notice, men in deep, rich colors hunched over cups of ale, accepting food and drink from servants in ragged collars. Soft melodies play from the lyres at the far corner of the room, and it reminds Santana so of her first few months in Kaupang, weaving music to entertain the rowdy crowd. Brittany bites her lip and scans the room, eye falling inevitably on their target.

Haraldr Hárfagri is an intimidating man. Brittany knows all about _large_ men and _strong _men (her father being both), but it is obvious his presence commands respect to all those who dare to bask within it. Not only a fierce warrior, his tactical mind is hailed as one of most brilliant to ever grace her people's history. It is why he was gratefully accepted as king, and why his sons will be the ones to rule long after he rises to Valhalla. And she is expected to impress this king for her father?

(_You are smarter than you think, _Santana had said to her one night, and she clings to those words like a light in the darkness.)

Together they approach his chair but Brittany comes within speaking distance alone, kneeling briefly and bowing her head. His eyes fall upon her and she feels the weight of his stare; curious and probing, she lifts her gaze to meet his own. "My King," she says quietly, "I am Bretagne Piersson, daughter of Jarl Silver-Spear. I come from Kaupang; I was told you were expecting us."

Haraldr runs one massive hand through his tangled beard. "You are the heir to Kaupang, then?" His voice silences the murmuring around them as all eyes fall upon their conversation; the back of Brittany's neck heats nervously under their scrutiny.

"I—" _Now is not the time for your future plans to be known, Brittany,_ Santana warns her and she relents. "Yes. I am." He nods, staring off into the distance for a moment.

"I received your runner. Is it true that you bring jotnar with you?" A spatter of mumbling starts up again, the fat rich men of the village hissing furiously amongst themselves.

"It is true," Brittany confirms, "they wait outside. It is difficult for them to fit into the longhouse without breaking the doorway." She chews on her lip. "Stórhríð is the one you will want to listen to... Toppurinn tends to take offense to many things. I know you are strong, my king, but I believe an angry _jotunn_ would be your match."

A scandalized grumble rolls around her and she vaguely feels Santana sigh heavily, but Brittany knows only the chuckle that Haraldr raises. "Is that how you got your limp, then?" He gestures to how she hunches on her spear, and her smile is relieved at the joke.

"They both wanted me for supper," she admits with a grin, "so Santana had to interrupt their bickering. Oh!" Brittany turns, beckoning her companion forward. "_This_ is Santana, my Lord. I met her in Aarhus in the spring. Finest priestess you will ever meet, I assure you. She has saved me from all sorts of different ends many a time, and only mocks me sometimes for it."

It is strange, how Santana seems to change when around other people. Her steps glide as she situates herself next to Brittany, her smile coy as she sweeps into a low bow in acknowledgement of the man seated before them. Her hair scatters about her shoulders and over her robe, fathomless and endless as the abyss of her eyes. "An honour, my Lord," she murmurs lowly, "I have heard many tales of your exploits in my stay." The silky tone of her voice makes Brittany shift uncomfortably where she stands, every nerve burning despite the cold. "I assume you have heard of me somehow."

Haraldr looks her up and down, searching for something only he can see. "Yes, I have," he muses almost to himself. "I find it strange Betar would try and keep such an interesting creature from me. He knows how I like to explore new paths."

Brittany winds her littlest finger in Santana's, smiling momentarily at her. "He likes Santana none, my Lord. I think he feels threatened."

The king nods to himself, looking downwards when something warm brushes his hand. He smiles and scratches at Sandalio's ears, the dog making himself known after his mistresses had finished their introductions. Haraldr is a notorious dog-lover, having himself dozens that his servants and children keep fed and trained. "What a handsome boy!" he coos, petting under his chin. "I'll bet you get all the attention, hm? So well-mannered."

An old man in a heavy robe inches forward, warily eyeing their pet. "Perhaps you should refrain from touching him, my King?" he asks hesitantly, pushing Sandalio away with his foot. "Who knows what kind of things he will have picked up, crossing the distances he has. He seems rather... wild."

_Just like his owners,_ he thinks, eyeing the two girls and their sodden clothes with leaves in their hair and dirt under their nails. _So terribly unkempt. _

But Haraldr waves him off with a scoff. "Always so worried about_ cleanliness. _It has no place here, especially not for our travellers who have come so far to speak! The two of you must be tired... see if you can coax in our jotnar from outside, and we will feed you a feast. We have much to discuss."

A feast is right—after the necessary introductions they settle down around the small hearth, dimmed at the giants' request, sipping from large cups and chewing at various meats and fish. It feels like their return to Kaupang without the tension; Haraldr is a generous and understanding host, listening intently to their travels and asking insightful questions, only interrupting once or twice. It becomes obvious why the people like him so when he congratulates them on their journey. "It is a tale for the sagas!" he proclaims merrily, clinking cups with Brittany, "I do admit at first that I thought it a bit strange for a woman to head these important excursions, but I see now the two of you are more competent than any of my boys." At that he shakes his head at himself. "What am I saying, of course you are. Bjorn is at Saeheimr, so he was unable to arrive, but Eirik should have been here eons ago. Damned fool is always late..."

As if summoned a large form sweeps into the room, bringing a flurry of snowflakes with him that scatter upon the floor and make a home on Brittany's nose; she sneezes, chilled from the cold. He looks around in confusion for a moment.

"I apologize, father," he says with an arched brow, "I thought you were tending the guests of Kaupang, not the whores from down the lane."

Santana bristles, her fingers curling angrily in the folds of her robe. Brittany cautiously presses her hand further into the fabric and raises laboriously, doing her best not to show the limp in her step. "I assume you are Eirik Bloodaxe?" she asks with only the hint of an edge in her tone. He looks her over and notes the absence of a collar.

"I am." Is his reply, challenging. "What is it to you?" Haraldr and Santana exchange an exasperated look between themselves.

"Not a good first impression, future king," Santana taunts from her seated position, "are you sure you can rule with that mouth?"

Brittany darts in front before he takes a step. _Not helping, _she hisses internally, stumbling when he plants a solid hand on her sternum and shoves her away. He makes it two steps further before a row of bright and bared teeth block his footsteps. Sandalio stans vigilant and furious as he protects his charges. Eirik hesitates at the large creature so obviously angered in his path—his breed is vicious, known for chasing off bears with their lightning bites and fearsome barks.

"Eirik!" Haraldr snaps angrily, able to look both the scornful father and offended king at once. "Is that a way to go about treating allies? You will sit down at once unless you want Nor Veg divided in the face of its biggest battle to yet grace its shores."

The younger man looks between the two for a moment before his eyebrows raise to his hairline. "_These_ are the messengers from Kaupang? Two girls who are not yet women? They mock our honour, father!" It could be amusing how his voice goes high and reedy in his incredulity were it not so irritating.

Brittany limps over and clamps her hand across Santana's mouth before she can unleash the sharp retort that brews within her throat; insults are a dire thing in northern culture, the victim able to be compensated in jewels, slaves, livestock, or even blood. Brittany has no intention of bleeding this eve and instead fixes Santana with a stern glare. _Let me handle this,_ she warns, noting the way Santana's mind goes deep and dark with anger. It worries her, but there are greater problems to deal with now.

"Surely you think Jarl Silver-Spear competent enough to send an able warrior to negotiate, Bloodaxe. The fact that he sends his own kin shows how important he thinks it to be, especially after we had just returned from another journey." She speaks earnestly despite being irritated about the whole ordeal herself; Santana remains sullenly silent.

Eirik scoffs. "An able warrior? Look at your movement. I have half a mind to call you an imposter."

"Eirik, that is enough!" Haraldr slams his hand down on the center table, lifting himself to a great towering height. "These are our guests, and you offend them with your poor hospitality, disgracing the family line. See to it that your attitude improves or you will have no hand in these alliances."

The room goes silent for a moment and Santana observes the angry red sheen about the newcomer's aura, the greed and violence coming from him in waves. If he is in line to become king, she fears what he will do to the kingdom. It is not an inherently malevolent halo, but it puts her on edge regardless, has the magic slowly slipping from her skin.

"Fine," he relents, sitting down heavily. "Let us begin."

Toppurinn rolls his eyes, glowing eerily in the dark. "Finally," he mutters, "_maðr _are so tiresome."

His brother elbows him in the side but doesn't disagree—Santana discreetly strokes her hand down Brittany's arm, kneading out the tension within. She sits beside her, careful not to wince as she lands too hard on the wood. "Where shall we start?" Santana asks, eager to break the thick silence that has fallen upon their shoulders.

Haraldr comes back to himself, shaking his head with a sigh. He seems older, somehow, a man with too many responsibilities. "Tell us what you know of his army and his movements. It seems you are more prepared than us."

Brittany gestures to Santana and she licks her lips anxiously, disliking the way the room's attention suddenly falls upon her. "He has many men that sail upwards... east, to Sviar. I believe they have docked somewhere close to Björkö and seek to ride west soon."

The king frowns. "They have horses?"

Santana nods. "Their cavalry is large, but Nor Veg is bad landscape. They cannot climb the steep mountains without pitching to their death... perhaps we could use that to our advantage, rain arrows down at them while they struggle to meet us."

"I refuse to pick at them like crows from the rafters," Eirik scoffs, crossing his broad arms over his chest. "If we fight, we fight as men, not women."

_How old is he?_ Santana asks in exasperation, rubbing at her temples. _He acts like a petulant child who has lost his favourite toy._ Brittany snickers into her hand, covering it up with a cough.

_Twenty-seven winters, I believe,_ she responds instead, kicking her under the table when it's realized they haven't said anything in a while. Santana starts, taking a large sip of her ale to compensate.

"Strange, considering the women would win while the men would die. Then again, you don't mind dying in your country, do you? I prefer to keep my head."

_I like it when you keep your head, too,_ Brittany observes, _it lets you use your mouth._

Discreet to anybody else, Santana blushes. _Stop that!_ she scolds and receives a mischievous smile in return.

Haraldr cuts in before Eirik can retaliate. "Björkö, you say? That means we receive no help from them."

Eirik scowls. "If they have rolled over and shown their bellies to the White Christ, then so be it. We are not so easily persuaded."

Finally, a notion they agree on.

"What do you need?" Haraldr asks, leaning forward, "Kaupang has proven itself a worthy ally and we will do all we are able to help. Betar is an honourable man, and your grandfather even more so. It will be glorious to fight alongside Yngvarr once again." The Hammer of the North aches for another great battle in an effort to reclaim his youth, and Brittany is more than content to give it to him.

"People," Brittany reels off all the things her father told her, "rations, ships... if you could find your allies it would help us immensely. We need good, common warriors if we're to defeat them."

Haraldr nods and tugs at his beard. "I assume we march east, then? To Sviar?"

"It seems that way."

"How are the forces going to be divided?" he asks suddenly. "I will have some under my command, as will Betar. I can give you a few men if you want to cut off one of their flanks with the help of Santana's _galdr_ to make their steps lighter."

Her own men? Brittany flushes with excitement. Such a thing is a massive show of trust.

"What men do I get?" Eirik asks eagerly, leaning forward. "I want the beserkers. They kill everything in their path."

"You will be under Betar," Haraldr says, "and will do what he says and not your own damned thing. It is time you learned a little humility in your actions."

His face turns into a snarl. "She gets warriors but not me?" he demands angrily, raising to his feet. "This is wrong!"

"Your definition of wrong can take a shit and leave the room," Haraldr growls back, his eyes warning. The tension in the room crackles until it seems almost a live thing, swirling in the air between them and attempting to come to life. They fight a silent battle for a few moments before Eirik's smile turns coy; it sends chills down Santana's spine.

"No," is the final result, defiant and solid.

Haraldr's eyebrows raise high until they seem to disappear into his wild mane. "No?" he thunders, rising from his seat until he stands level with his son. "You defy my will?"

"You defy my honour!" Eirik yells back, shoulders drawn and bristling. "I have proved myself an able warrior, time and time again, yet you _slight_ me with these tricks! I am your _kin_ and the future king of Nor Veg!"

"You are perhaps my boy, sometimes even my favourite boy, but you possess the oafishness of your father's father," Haraldr snarls angrily, "you are just like him, do you know? His impatience and stupidity found him drowned in a river, condemned to Ran's hall in the sea and kept forever from Valhalla! Is that what you want?"

"This _impatience_ will win this war! Give me the men I deserve!"

"Either you learn your place," Haraldr says lowly, eyes gleaming angrily, "or it will be Bjorn who inherits the crown."

All in the room see Eirik's mind wheel at that, attempting to wrap itself around the possibility of being denied the very thing he has craved his entire existence. He struggles for a moment before he shakes his head, refusing the compromise.

"I refuse to fight, then," he proclaims, sitting back down in his seat, "and will ride up north until the battle is finished."

Haraldr's mouth gapes open, his teeth shiny from under his beard. "You will disgrace yourself and abandon your family for this?"

Eirik shrugs; Santana sees the unease in his stance, covered by confidence. He doesn't like it as much as Haraldr.

"You will fare poorly without my knowledge of the land and the axe in my hand," he says, taking a long sip of Brittany's ale which she left upon the table, "but it must be done. Perhaps then we can come to a compromise."

"A compromise?" Haraldr roars, his face red with fury, "why you scum-sucking, insolent little—"

"How about a duel?" Toppurinn interjects hastily, grabbing the attention of all occupants in the room. "It is obvious that _maðr _can solve nothing without violence... let it be shown that Bretagne is a superior warrior, and he has no right to complain about being given no men to lead."

"I think that is the first intelligent thing I have heard you say in hundreds of years," Stórhríð says in wonder, not mindful of the harsh swat he receives in return.

Haraldr mulls it over. "And if Eirik wins?"

"Then I am the one to lead her men," he injects with a smirk. He turns his eyes to Brittany, in them a challenge that burns almost as bright as his anger. "Get up, shield-maiden."

Brittany sputters for a few moments.

"A duel? Do you not see my leg? I can barely walk without limping!"

A true warrior would fight regardless," Eirik scoffs, "or are you unable to do what the others say you can? I will not fight for a coward." In the words is a slight and Brittany catches it, her voice going deadly calm.

"Are you insulting my honour?" The room holds their breath as Eirik grins, a hint of animal fearlessness visible in the slant of his mouth.

"I piss on your honour and leave it to rot, unworthy bitch."

Stórhríð inhales a sucking breath and clamps Santana by the wrist, forcefully keeping her in her seat despite the way her magic burns his hand. "This is a fight she must win herself," he mutters to her, sitting her back down. "No good will come of you winning this for her."

"Why is he so cruel?" she hisses back, eyes gleaming with rage as she glares at the young man in the room. She feels Brittany's mind in turmoil and so wishes to take away the indecision, the rigid lines of upset along her shoulders and the awkward, uncomfortable lean of her hip.

"Eirik is an arrogant man," Stórhríð replies cautiously, never taking his eyes away from the movement of Brittany's hand that floats to her spear, "and believes that no one is better than him at combat. He also sees women as weak and inferior... the notion that one could be at his standing is more than he can take. The story goes that he was scorned once by a former lover and has remained hostile ever since."

Santana nervously licks her lips, chancing a glance at Haraldr. His brow is set in a thunderous line, lips pursed and angry underneath his snarled beard. His massive fingers grip so tightly to his cup that it threatens to break. "Will she accept?"

"She has to," the giant whispers back, "else she will be seen as cowardly; there are few things worse in the northern world than being a coward. Bretagne has fought her entire life for respect, has she not? I doubt she will let it slip through her fingers so easily."

As predicted, Brittany rises to her feet. Santana winces in sympathy as she leans awkwardly on one side, gripping at the chair for balance. Being stationary has stiffened the joint, and will only make it harder to move, her steps stilted and slow as she hobbles her way to Eirik. It is surreal how they can stand nose to nose—his bulk dwarfs her but she stands tall, her shoulders drawing to his and her eyes boring into the bridge of his nose. "You would fight an injured woman for misplaced pride?" she asks softly, and in her words is something like disappointment that makes him stiffen, shoving her back by the shoulder.

"You're of no use to us like you are," he spits, "let me have the men and spare us all the trouble."

They are shepherded from the longhouse; their raised voices have attracted attention, and a crowd gathers behind them as they exit out into the cold snows, their footsteps dragging slush behind them. Brittany leans on Santana for comfort and stability as the two of them follow her adversary out into the dark.

_I don't think I can do this, _Brittany tells her fearfully, gripping tight to her robe. _It hurts too much_.

_You are so much better than you were, _Santana tries to reassure her, pressing a discrete kiss to her warm temple. Brittany flushes happily under the show of affection, but it is quickly eaten away by her nerves. _Just keep him at a distance and try not to move too much. I promise you that you can win this. If you want... you can do it for me. _

Having something to fight for gives so much more meaning to the struggle, and Brittany smiles gratefully, unconsciously straightening up the best she can. _For you, anything_.

(Something in Santana's chest takes flight.)

They face each other in the circle their audience has created; Santana lets go and Brittany is alone, the cold wind blowing her hair across her face. It howls mournfully in the echo of a wolf and whistles through her ears, its fingers brushing her clothes and chilling her to the bone. She drops her pack in the slush and unsheathes her spear, gripping it firmly in her hands as she settles into her stance. It is crooked at best, wrong at the angles, but the best she can do. Eirik in turn draws his axe, the thing dwarfed in his massive hand.

Wordlessly they circle each other, sizing and plotting. Eirik notices her heavy steps immediately and rushes in, only to be jabbed back by the deadly extension of her spear, a gleam of metal that barely makes a sound. He dances along the edges of her reach, never quite making it to her body.

"How far do they go?" Santana whispers to Stórhríð, noticing his grim expression.

"Until one of them dies, or their life is spared," he replies softly, "and it looks like Eirik will go for the kill if given the chance."

For the first time in many moons, Santana prays to Ataecina for protection.

Brittany narrowly parries a brutal hit and grunts in pain when she pivots on her injured hip, staggering once before righting herself. The force of the blow disorients her and lets Eirik hook her spear away, yanking it from her hands and sending it flying to the edge of the circle. She immediately draws her axe and he sneers in return.

"Is this the legendary Bretagne Piersson?" he jeers, coming in close now that her range has shrunk. Brittany squares her shoulders and accepts the shield offered by a passerby, now equal with Eirik. "Afraid to come in close lest she be gutted by my blade?"

_Stay calm,_ Santana whispers and Brittany sucks in a deep breath through her nose, ridding herself of the budding frustration. She adjusts her stance so that she falls more heavily on her front leg, allowing herself the blessing of stability but sacrificing her coveted agility in return. The wind saps at her strength and turns her fingers numb on her axe, white and trembling with the cold.

"Your blade will never make it to my flesh," she growls in retaliation, yet barely blocks the incoming blow with her shield. She pushes back in retaliation, swiping with her weapon and hitting nothing but air. Her teeth bare in irritation and she limps forward to chase.

They trade hits with nothing but glancing blows, but it is obvious that Brittany is losing ground. The throb in her hip has increased to a scream and she shakes in her jerkin, having left her thicker furs indoors. Travelling for so long has ensured she has nothing left in reserve.

"She's losing," Santana hushes urgently to Stórhríð, gripping his massive arm in worry. In return his eyebrows furrow into his flesh, watching his new ally stumble and receive a thin, weeping line of red to her bicep. Perhaps they are even becoming... dare he say it, friends? It would explain the concern in his heart as she attempts to shrug it off, holding her shield closer to her body in an effort to compensate. Her right leg hardly touches the ground.

Santana feels helpless as she is, caught in the howling wind without a method to chase away her pain. Brittany has always done so much for her when she was in agony or unable to sleep, rocking her, banishing her demons. Sometimes she would even sing her to sleep if the place permitted, holding her close and humming unknown lullabies into her ear until she drifted off like a newborn babe in the comfort of their mother.

Wait... wait...

_Brittany, come here!_ Her companion almost falls over her feet when the command is given, so sudden and sharp is it in her head. The temporary distraction earns her another devastating block that tears at her shoulder.

_Bit busy right now,_ she grunts back, able to catch Haraldr over the thigh and leave a sweeping wound that does nary more than sting. Her frustration mounts with every ineffective blow.

_I can help you, I swear, _Santana says eagerly, _just please come to me._

And when can she ever resist Santana? Brittany slowly and laboriously manoeuvres her way over to where Santana is standing, almost touching before her ears catch onto the faintest hum. She frowns, discreetly glancing over to her companion who has wound her hands together, a deep sound vibrating from her throat and spilling from her parted lips. Stórhríð protects her with his massive body, shielding her from the crowd and any prying eyes. The tune sets a fire in her blood similar to the raging wildfires that destroy nations and burn kingdoms to dust—in its wake it sweeps away the pains of her injury, burning through the frozen wastes of Nor Veg. She grins feral and turns again to face Eirik with the song of battle safe within her heart.

He notices her shifting stance almost immediately, how she moves with grace and easily dodges his swing. A blooming pain starts over his torso as her axe rakes a deep gash into his side, splattering blood into the snow until it turns into a pink, watery mess. Her smile is uncanny, almost calm were it not for the animal frenzy in her eyes as she moves in once again.

Their next exchange is a flurry of blocks and counters and parries, each feeding off the other until he is hopelessly caught in her web; she flings his shield away with the curve of her axe and winds him with the rim of her own, bringing the flat end of her weapon around to make his skitter away. A quick kick to the inside of his knee has him sprawling shamefully in the cold muck, her weight following him down until frozen steel is pressed against his ruddy neck. "You _lose_," she hisses victoriously, patting his cheek a few times with the flat of her axe before rising to her feet with a smirk firmly etched on her lips. Her body is floating, light with Santana's song and the elation of a deserved win.

Santana is in her arms all at once, squeezing her so tight her breath threatens to come right out. She laughs as she gets a face full of dark hair, spinning her on the spot and listening to the relieved babbling by her ear. "Did you really ever have a doubt?" Brittany teases, receiving a scornful stare and firm, angry tap on the nose.

"Never scare me like that again," Santana warns threateningly, holding her gaze, "do you understand me? I thought I would have to save Nor Veg alone."

Brittany's eyes soften, and she strokes a strand of hair from her lover's face, running her thumb along her defined cheekbone. "Not getting rid of me that easily," she says with an easy smile, "I'm here to stay, you know."

"Good," Santana says softly. "I'd like for you to be around a while longer."

The two of them walk up to Haraldr, Brittany's steps defiant. "Was that enough of a reason?" she asks, almost arrogant if not for the hopeful tone of her voice. He chuckles in return, one massive hand clapping her across the back.

"Girl, that was a beautiful display of putting my boy right on his ass," he agrees with a large grin, "even if you did have to cheat a little. But I won't say a thing if you keep quiet."

As she deflates and gives him a sheepish grin in return, his face turns serious. "But we got an unexpected visitor while you were busy swinging swords," he says gravely, pulling forwards a man decked in simple chain mail and bearing a cross on his front. Santana recognizes the sign instantly.

"The White Christ," she hisses, narrowing her eyes and drawing Brittany closer. The man shifts uncomfortably and mutters a prayer under his breath, eyeing Santana like a wild dog about to strike. "What does he want?"

Haraldr nudges him harshly. "Go on, boy. Tell them what you told me."

"I, uh... Lord Harald requests your p-presence the next eve at Haugesund so that he may offer a negotiation for Nor Veg."

The west! Of course... she shouldn't have cast them away so quickly. Santana looks worriedly at Haraldr, but it is Brittany who speaks her questions. "Are we going?" she asks curiously, looking between the boy and her allies. Stórhríð and Toppurinn loom over, sending him shaking in his leather boots, their eyes gleaming brightly in the darkness.

"Of course we are," he rumbles with a sigh, "but I will let the _draugar_ piss on my grave before I give anything up to that swine. The both of you, I, and Eirik—once he picks up the pieces of his pride—will be going, along with a few warriors as reassurance." He thinks a moment. "The jotnar will stay here... if at all possible, I wish to reveal our key piece on the battlefield and no sooner. Our... guest will remain here."

They all nod in agreement and look to the mountains, where the sun has not yet begun to rise over the jagged peaks. All there is left to do is wait for the first glimpse of the invisible enemy.


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: **Nothing much to say except for; due to the want of my beta to meddle in my plotlines (it's okay I love you anyway), Battlesong is no longer two thirds done. It is probably... a little more than halfway done now. If that. You can blame (or thank) her at will.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 20<strong>

**I will send a storm to capture your heart**

**and bring you home **

Sleep snatched in quick, uneasy bursts soon finds all involved peering into the dawning sun with a tired yawn, dragging themselves from their bedrolls and greeting the new day with a certain hint of trepidation. In the little hut where Santana and Brittany had stolen a few hours of rest they can hear the scuffle of the servants as they scurry about, preparing the meals for their soldiers going into the unknown fields of Haugesund.

The two ready in the twilight silence that the breaking of night always brings, shrugging into warm winter garments and checking the clasps of their packs. Brittany kisses Santana's temple warmly, softly, her hands stroking over the tension in her priestess and her slender shoulders. She receives a smile in return, and all too soon they are out into the waking world, passing through the single crowded street that separates them from the longhouse, ducking into Haraldr's hall and immediately gravitating to the large forms of the giants already beginning their morning meal. The hearth crackles cheerily and lends the scent of burning spruce to the space, a thick smoke that clears both their minds and their noses.

Eirik sulks off to the side, his jaw working furiously as he chews upon his tough bread. Santana meets his gaze with a glare and refuses to look away; Brittany rolls her eyes at the childish display but allows it, harboring no love for him either.

"Are you ready for today?" comes a voice from the shadows, revealing their leader a moment later. He has decided on modest attire with only a thin trimming of gold upon his furs, thick leather boots thudding against the ground. The only indication he is ready for battle is the chainmail across his shoulders and the skullcap tucked under his arm, the metal worn and dented. He, too, has seen many battles, almost all of them victorious.

Brittany shrugs, and in the movement Santana sees the worry she tries so hard to mask. (She could never hide from Santana, not even the day they met.) "As ready as I can be," she responds, helping herself generously to the pitcher of ale. "Do we know where he is or what he wants?"

"Only that he wants to _talk,_" Haraldr sneers in return, the motion prompting him to slam his fist against the long bench. The bowls jump in its wake, sloshing their soups and stews over the sides. "That carrion-eater only wishes to talk to our corpses. I will not give him the chance."

Brittany frowns. "Are you certain? He sent two priests to Kaupang in an effort to negotiate a truce between us."

The king waves his hand dismissively, gnawing on a crisp apple that has not yet been bitten by the cold. It is snowing now, fat flakes that cover everything in a fine layer of white. It is unprecedentedly cold for such late fall, the winds crueler than in the dead of winter. The townspeople whisper of a curse in the mountains, and the rivers and trees murmur back of a season that has stripped them so early of their leaves and left them to die; the animals to grow thin and weak without their nourishment. A darkness curls across the land and rests it gingerly within its suffocating bosom. "Harald sent two priests to anger Jarl Betar," he says instead, "he knew that Kaupang would never yield to him. He wanted a reason to attack, and he has given him that."

(Santana thinks of the priest back in Kaupang, waiting for her burning touch.)

"So, what," Toppurinn asks, his mouth muffled with food, "we go and crush him? He has severed himself from the rest of his armies, it would be an easy victory."

Haraldr seems to consider it, but ultimately shakes his head. "No, there has to be something else afoot. Harald is too careful to make such a mistake."

"Perhaps it is a gesture of goodwill," Brittany declares hopefully, but anybody can hear the doubt behind her tone.

The king sighs. "If only."

They finish their morning meal of fish and fruit, meeting with their small congregation of men—farmers that have donned their battle gear for their king, forsaking the daily chores to meet the enemy. Now that the true chill has set in and the harvesting has ended, many people in Nor Veg and beyond will be preparing for the winter, salting and smoking their meat, pickling their vegetables in an effort to stave away the cold. Regardless, some will not see the spring.

"The hike to Haugesund will only take about until midday," Haraldr mentions as they begin down the dirt road that leads further north, "but this late in the season, we will only have enough daylight to set up camp and speak with him. The endless nights are almost upon us."

Santana experienced first hand the midnight sun and the day that never ended in the summer, and now it seems the sky threatens to swallow the sun in its entirety for the coming winter. Another bad omen to stack onto all the others. She sighs and resigns herself to a lifetime of ill chances, waving at the giants until they fade into the distance and disappear. They are suddenly alone on the path; two girls, five men, and a king against the world.

Sandalio barks and Santana apologizes that she had forgotten him.

The procession of vikings rattle as they walk, their heavy chainmail a constant racket that grates upon the nerves. Even Brittany wears her own, the long tails brushing her thighs. Her beautiful spear and axe are strapped firmly against her, and in her polished cap she looks a vision, a mighty valkyrja straight from the tales of old.

(Santana and her dark hands had touched her last night, drawing away the pain from her hip. It still lingers, an ache that refuses to mend, but it is no longer crippling. The men murmur at her recovery, but she keeps their secrets close to heart.)

_If you stare too long, you might fall over_, Santana hears in her head; Brittany sports only the faintest hints of a smirk, but her eyes glitter fondly, betraying her amusement.

_I think I already have_, Santana muses to herself, keeping her thoughts close lest they be heard.

At times they use deer runs rather than the road, and the forests are oddly silent; at this time the mighty aurochs would be feeding from the lichen-rich rocks and grasses to survive the winter, the squirrels hoarding in their little holes to hibernate. Their brother the bear will have begun his descent into his winter-sleep where he will slumber until the birds call him from his rest—but before that he must be fat and gorged, ready for the long period until he stumbles out, thin and weak, into the sun.

Yet, there is nothing.

No rustle in the bushes, no chatter of squirrels or mice, no silent deer peering at them through the leaves. Only birds dare enter this forest of silence, and even they are subdued—the party catches only glimpses of their bright feathers that gives away their presence rather than their song. Santana grimaces and pulls her robe tighter around herself, willing away the feeling of a million invisible eyes tracking their every move.

"Does Harald have his own völva?" Brittany asks suspiciously, sweeping back a few branches on her way forward. "The forests are wrong."

The men mutter their agreement and Santana looks around at the shivering trees that have too early lost their leaves. "Only the fat men," she denies, "and they are too incompetent to do something like this. It is bigger than him... bigger than us."

"The gods must be angry," whispers the youngest man, his hint of stubble making him seem older than he is. "They are the only ones that can turn the winds so cold and the snows so harsh."

"A god, perhaps," Santana murmurs doubtfully, running her fingers along the old mating ruts of the deer and aurochs, "but not your own."

The young one scoffs, hopping over a few rocks. "What, the White Christ? He caused all this?"

Santana crouches down and touches the low-lying bush, gently coaxing their roots from the soil and frowning at how they simply crumble in her hand. Weak and stunted, they ooze darkness into her palm. "Not the young god... an Old One. Very, very old."

**Older than they will be able to understand, priestess.**

Santana starts and drops the plant as if burned, wiping her hand against the bark to sluff away the dark. A cold chuckle brushes freezing air against the nape of her neck as she realizes her hand is untouched.

"What is it?" Haraldr asks tensely, noting the silence that has settled about their shoulders. Santana opens her mouth for a moment, searching for the slime she swore she saw, before shaking her head.

"I thought I saw... nevermind. We should keep moving."

Brittany brushes a concerned hand across the small of her back, taking no comfort in the shaky nod she receives. She wants to ask but knows this is not the time nor the place, and instead follows the others through the run and towards the distant sound of a raging river. (There are things only those touched with magic can see, and some things only those touched with darkness can see. When combined, the possibilities are limitless.)

Sandalio sticks close to Santana and licks at her fingers when she becomes distracted, herding her onwards with the rest of the group. Brittany engages in light, almost foolish conversation with the others in an effort to distract them sufficiently from Santana and her jerky movements; every so often her hand twitches up almost as if to swat an insect from her ear, but they left long ago, dying off with the frost. Eventually Brittany grips at her wrist, forcing it down by her hip where it remains until they reach the river.

The single footpath is blocked by a fallen boulder and all around them the water churns, in its froth the curious eyes of the water-children watch their procession from afar, spindly fingers waiting for one of them to fall into the current. Haraldr scratches his head, craning his eyesight up to the cliff where it must have rolled loose. "Damned mudslides," he mutters, putting his shoulder to the stone. "Come on boys, we have to move this out of the way." Together, they grunt and heave, their feet digging into the soft muck of the earth. They leave impressions, but their way is still blocked with no method around. Brittany huffs, body drooping against the boulder.

"How did this get dislodged?" she asks in disbelief, kicking it once. "A giant would be hard-pressed to shift it."

The king shrugs once, stepping back to study it. "Stranger things have happened."

Brittany looks around for a moment before focusing on Santana, a few steps away from the group. Her eyes are riveted to the moving water but Brittany knows she sees nothing, too lost in her own thoughts to pay attention. Quietly, she makes her way forward.

"Are you sure you are well?" she mumbles, looking around before brushing a dark strand of hair from her face. "I know you slept poorly last night."

Santana's smile is weak at best, sharp and sarcastic. "When have I ever slept well?" she mutters, but sighs a moment later, deciding not to tell Brittany lest it be a figment of her own overworked imagination. She does so hate worrying her warrior. "I will be fine... I just want this journey over. I feel as if there is something missing."

"Missing?" Brittany queries, leaning forward the slightest amount.

"Like..." Santana fumbles for a moment, "like there is something _we _have missed. A lacking connection. I have no words to explain it, truly, just a feeling."

The taller girl shrugs, brushing their elbows together. "You've been right off less than a feeling." Her hand goes sub-consciously to the stone in her pocket, drawing strength from its smoothness. Together they gaze at the boulder and the block it brings. "Can you do something about it?"

Can she? With Ataecina's magic it would have crumbled into dust, but now, lacking the blue light?

"Perhaps," Santana sighs, flexing her hands. "I wish we brought the jotnar with us."

"They are quite useful, aren't they?" Brittany agrees. They could have simply walked through the river.

Santana steps forward until she faces the boulder, palms outwards and sleeves rolled to her elbows. The whole forest holds its breath as light begins to gather in the dip of her palms, licking around the pad of her thumb and across her nails. Brittany notes almost immediately that this light is nowhere near as pure as the one that devoured the village and turned all to ash; it holds a grayish quality that flickers around the edges, tainting it. But, as the air shimmers with violent heat, no one denies it is just as powerful, growing and swelling until Santana hurls it forwards and it wraps it in a searing embrace around the stone. A roaring invades the air and the men duck for cover; Brittany herself stands in awe as she always does, Santana silhouetted against the devouring flame as nary a shadow of a being, her hair whipping back in the wind it creates. From the slight tilt of her head, her eyes burn white.

Eventually the boulder droops to one side, sloughing off into the water where it bubbles and hisses before cooling. The flame wears it down into nothingness, gnawing at what should be unmovable, until just a hard grey surface remains as a bridge to the other side. Santana lets the fire die, grimacing as she closes her hands and touches the burnt, weeping flesh with her fingers.

Brittany rushes to her as she always does, supporting her as she falters. Santana smiles tiredly into the crook of her neck and mumbles something incoherent, swaying once before steadying. The men emerge from their hiding spots amidst the trees and gape freely at the path that has now been cleared.

"_You_ are the true god, völva," mutters the young warrior, and it brings a smile to Santana's lips.

**They begin to see.**

They continue onwards.

* * *

><p>Brittany huffs as she clears the last little hill, once again adjusting Santana's weight upon her back. Though Santana's mind was willing to carry on, her body was not, evidenced by the abrupt stop they had made shortly before Brittany coaxed her to take a break. Though she protested, she was sleeping fitfully minutes after.<p>

Haraldr watches Brittany struggle momentarily before straightening out, her hands gripping at Santana's thighs through her robe. Her head has fallen upon Brittany's shoulder and her mouth rests by her ear; every so often he will hear the faintest mumblings of another language, thick strings of something black escaping from the open seal of her lips and dropping to the ground. The shield-maiden does her best to wipe it away, but there is only so much she can do with her hands occupied as they are.

"I could carry her," he offers after a moment, surveying the expanse they will have to cross. Itt is separated into little almost-islands by hundreds of tiny inlets that worm across the land like snakes, barring easy passage to travellers. There are no towering mountains, but it is not an easy journey.

"I can manage," Brittany declines with a thankful smile. "If she were to wake up with you, she might burn off your face."

The king raises a startled brow but says nothing, keeping a watchful eye on the two as they begin their descent into the water-ridden flatlands. Trees cover every corner and even from their elevation it is impossible to see their final goal. Their procession clinks as they walk into the heart of the forests.

"How did the two of you meet?" he asks after a moment of silence, watching as Santana curls further into Brittany's warmth. The angry, raw red of her hands has already begun to fade, colour creeping back into the wounded portions. If he looks close enough, they pulse with their own heartbeat.

She laughs at the memory. "We met in Aarhus, truly. During a raid—I found her in the tavern with the other women and children. She had just knocked a dozen warriors flat on their asses and surely wanted to do the same to me."

"What was an Iberian doing in Aarhus?"

"She was running from the other end of Harald's army, believe it or not. He combined forces with another group that worships the White Christ and seeks to banish the current rulers, but this throws the land into turmoil. I believe her village was attacked shortly after she left."

They sidestep a few fallen logs, reaching the bottom of their hill. "And you are... friends, now?" he enquires, looking over them. They seem like such opposites, light and dark, kind and cruel, but as Brittany's lips turn upwards into a soft smile, he finds that perhaps this is what makes their bond so close.

"You could say that," she agrees quietly, tilting her head to properly view the treeline and the obstacle it represents. "This war has taken its toll on us all, my lord, but none more so than her. Together we carry a kingdom, and I... I was never any good with words, but I know enough that when I say I will fight until my dying breath for her, I mean it. We promised to be together for all that comes to us, and no matter what happens, we will be."

"Is it truly wise to take such a large burden?"

"Did others say it was wise when you gathered the lands together and taxed them so heavily that many left for other kingdoms?" Brittany asks, almost an insult if not for the mild manner in which the question is posed. Haraldr bristles, but the shield-maiden pays him no mind. "You have done drastic things for love and kingdom, my lord, as will I."

Her words make her appear older, somehow. A maturity she has not lived long enough to harvest lies across her shoulders and brings deeper colour to her eyes. (He sees her mother.) The body lain across her back grumbles and shifts, eyes fluttering as she mouths soundless words into Brittany's ear—she understands. Haraldr moves away to question one of the warriors and escape the jarl's daughter and the way her eyes have gone soft and kind.

Santana stirs, mumbling softly at the hair that tickles her face. She goes to turn from it but finds herself unable to move, draped rather ungracefully over another person. Her eyes open, relief lasting only a moment when she realizes exactly who is cradling her thighs so gently in their hands.

_Brittany!_ she squirms upon her back, subtly trying to free herself. _I can walk now, let me down._

Even facing forward, Santana feels that dubious stare inching into her thoughts.

_Can you now? Then why are you still shaking?_

Santana hisses in irritation, glancing around at the walking men who are too preoccupied with the terrain to pay them attention._ Britt, just let me down. There are people around—_

_Am I no longer allowed to touch you?_ Brittany asks, hurt. _This is no more than what a friend would do._

But those strong hands touch, and Brittany always makes her burn. _I—no, it... your, um, your hands are too high up on my legs. It feels strange._ She feels her face flame with the admission, still so uncomfortable with her hips bracketing Brittany's sinuous back in plain sight of strangers. It feels intrusive, somehow. Looking in on something that is theirs.

_Oh?_ Brittany enquires, her tone lighter now. _I see. Friends are not supposed to touch like __**this**__... _Her hands squeeze teasingly and Santana muffles her squeak of surprise in Brittany's neck. _You need not be so ashamed, my love. I aid you, and in return I have your legs wrapped around me. What more could we want?_

Despite her discomfort Santana snorts, smacking her companion half-heartedly over the head. _You're insatiable._

_Only for you._

They make slow but steady work through the forest—rivers morph into streams into fjords, inlet upon inlet fracturing the land into tiny pieces. The spruce whisper of their passing and Santana begs them not to tell the darkness, but she knows that it follows them (her) always. It is in the air they breathe, all knowing and all seeing. All patient.

Dusk is descending by the time they make it to the proper edge; the endless nights are upon them and the sun disappears long before usual sunset, marking the beginning of winter and the Wild Hunt. Brittany sets Santana down and she sparks a great white fire from nothingness, digging out a pit upon which she lays her craft, allowing it to warm their frozen bones as the men create shelters for them to sleep. Haraldr appears grim in the flickering shadows the fire casts, his eyes able to see the plains of Haugesund beyond and whatever it may hold. "Are we meeting them tomorrow morn?" asks one of the men, blowing into his hands for warmth. "We lose the sun so quickly here."

But they have wasted enough time on distractions and their window grows short. "After making camp, we will approach them," Haraldr reports, peering into the growing darkness. "This business needs to be finished. The sooner we can drop the false shroud of friendliness, the sooner I can drive my axe into this pig-swallower's head."

They create their camp and leave the flame at a low burn; in the dim light, the king catches a glimpse of Santana's hands. Once raw and seeping, the flesh has since utterly healed.

_She must be touched_, he thinks curiously, unable to dwell as they make their way down to the meeting point. Torches glimmer in the distance, and he can hear a great clamour of men, their voices bouncing across the lands and making the sound of many out of few. They stop somewhere towards the center and Haraldr nods subtly at Santana; a great arc of flame shoots up into the sky, dazzling and blinding for a brief motion in time before sizzling into nothingness. The chatter abruptly stops as all eyes are drawn to the shadows in the dark.

"I come for the traitor, Harald of Normandy!" the king booms, an echo of ancient thunder. Many may not agree with his ways, but in this moment he is the fiercest sight in all the lands to behold, a champion to the people that still trust in his ways. "We have upheld our end of the bargain, boy. Now come forward lest you be too _cowardly_ to face your enemies."

A split second of silence before the crowd parts for the clinking sound of metal overlapping—a man appears in shining scale with a gleaming helmet placed over a head of golden hair. Even in the darkness one can see his blue, blue eyes shining in the firelight, sweeping over his adversaries with interest. His gaze lingers the longest on Santana, and within those moments of contact passes an eternity of hatred.

"I am surprised that you came, king of Nor Veg." His voice is smooth, his Norse perfect as it always was. His time in the fat lands of Francia has not yet dulled his tongue. "I would have thought you think it a trap."

"I do," Haraldr wastes no time in agreeing, "but I have ways of ensuring you stay in line."

The lord's eyes float again to Santana and his mouth turns into a ghost of a smile. "Ah, yes, the priestess. Such a useful piece. She is gifted with God's will."

Eirik scoffs, spitting upon the ground. "The will of the White Christ is _shit_. Jarl Betar stomped on those priests and sent their puny selves to their underworld where they will _rot_ for dying in such a pitiful way."

"Perhaps," Harald agrees. "I spare no breath pretending to know the will of God. He has made me do strange things in my brother's quest for his king."

"And how is _King_ _Rollo?_" Haraldr sneers, not bothering to hide his distaste. "Has he grown fat on his throne while he sends his kin to do his battling for him? That swine is not worth the hides he wears and he _knows_ it. That is why he ran like a rat with his tail between his legs when I cast him from Nor Veg."

With this comes the first hint of irritation, a slight tick in Harald's jaw. "I have not seen my king in many moons," he replies sharply. "Nor will I until Nor Veg and Sviar both fall under my spear."

"Ah!" King Haraldr crows. "There is the bloodthirsty boy I knew in my youth! So you have not forgotten your roots under the soft lands of the south."

A noise comes, and they turn to see Santana snarl in exasperation. "These petty insults do nothing but waste time," she growls in annoyance. "We have come for a reason, have we not? State it, and let us be done with these games." Brittany soothes a hand down her arm but she too is tense, strung taut like a hunting bow about to release.

"Very well," Harald sighs, all too eager himself to be finished with his enemy. "I come to make you a deal. Convert your people to the White Christ and his religion, and we will withdraw from Nor Veg and leave the people in peace. There will be no more slaughter, no more torture. You will be our allies and we yours."

It was always going to take more than that. Haraldr shows exactly what he thinks by spitting at the ground by Harald's feet. "You can take your new religion and stuff it up your brother's ass," he hisses, voice low and angry. "What makes you think I will not simply step over and kill you right now, ending your ridiculous crusade for glory?"

The lord grins, quiet and calculating. "Because we have something of yours."

The rattle of chains and the parting of the crowd; a figure is shoved out into the open where they fall to their knees, spears trained upon their every move. It is not until a torch is given to one of the keeper's that their face is revealed, and all sound seems to be sucked out of the space for a brief, peaceful moment.

"_Mami!_" The cry shatters the suspension and Brittany barely catches Santana as she lunges forward, sidestepping as fire bursts from the ground about their feet in long snaking tendrils that scorches all around them. The girl in her arms is feral, screaming incoherencies as she strains for her mother across the field.

_They have her!_ Santana cries in her head, an anguished sound that bounds through endless space and time. _Let me go! Let me save her!_

Shouts of alarm ring around them and Brittany sees the beginnings of white fire forming a halo around them, searing the earth. The heat is intense, singeing her calves, but she refuses to back down. Instead she holds her tighter, enfolding her in her own arms and trapping her in place.

_If you so much as twitch they will drive their spears into her back!_ It's so hard to drill herself into Santana's mind when it is frenzied like this, a frightened animal that has no cause for reason. _If you try, you will start a war!_

_There is already a war!_ Santana almost breaks free and the flame rears again; the high priestess is pleading with her in Spanish but it reaches deaf ears. Brittany feels her grasp weakening.

Amidst the chaos comes another voice.

**I can bring her to you! **It comes from across galaxies but Santana hears it as clearly as if it was right at her side. **I have the power to destroy these pitiful barriers! Come to me, priestess, and together we will shatter them all!**

It is so, so tempting... so easy, so...

"Do this, and you will watch your mother die as I watched mine!"

The world seems to dull as Santana turns to Brittany in disbelief, watching the tears roll from her eyes and down her sharp jaw. Her whole face is drawn in agony, as if simply the thought is as fresh as the wound that took her from the world. "No matter how old I become, I always remember it... I always remember her face as she died. _Please, _Santana, I do not wish this for you."

The priestess studies her expression for a hesitant moment, feeling the anguish through their joined mind as surely as if it had been her mother murdered. She swallows shakily and the violent flame retreats from around them, sinking back into the ground where it extinguishes and disappears. The entire battlefield lets out a sigh of relief as Santana reaches up to wipe away her viking's tears. Even Harald swallows, watching the two interact silently.

The gentle brush of Santana's hand speaks a million apologies, and Brittany's sad smile returns forgiveness. Together they turn back to the enemy; this time, Maria's curious eyes lock directly upon her kin and do not break away, not even once to see the woman that has so stolen her daughter's heart.

"She could have melted you away," Haraldr says quietly to his opponent. "If there had been no barriers, you would have been mere puddles of sodden flesh upon the ground. That is my answer to your truce, and it will always be my answer until you fall under my blade."

Harald's eyes go impossibly sad for a moment before hardening, and as he waves his hand Maria is taken from sight. She cries something to her daughter that only she can understand before she is swallowed in the crowd of soldiers. "So it shall be, then." He nods to his people and they take a few steps back. "I do not claim to understand my God, but I will fight under his holy banner. I did not wish for bloodshed, Fairhair. You have forced my hand because of your foolish pride."

"I would watch my kingdom burn before surrendering to you," Haraldr vows angrily, in his voice the conviction of his ancestors.

"Then you will burn alongside it," replies his enemy before the entirety of his forces vanish into the newborn darkness.

~.~.~.~.~

The procession back to camp is silent, dark and brooding with the thought of the days to come. Brittany's limp has returned, but she decides not ask for Santana and her healing touch, instead leaning upon her for support as they follow the others back to shelter. Haraldr wears a thunderstorm as his expression, his thick brows drawn into a heavy, infuriated line. She dares not ask what is on his mind.

All Santana thinks of is her mother.

She had worn the skeleton of starvation, but for being a prisoner she had appeared in better shape than hoped. Santana remembers the men that had escaped and ran to their village for aid, their bones sharp against their skin and their eyes haunted in their skulls. Her mother still had the defiance in her stare that was so very present the night she was told to leave. Harald had not yet managed to break her. (But how much longer can she hold?)

Just knowing that she is not even a few miles away, sitting in a tiny little cage waiting to be killed or converted... it brings such a sharp pain like she has rarely known. In their shelter she curls into a loose ball in an effort to forget, to stop herself from rising and going after her at that very moment. Brittany understands and winds herself around her in the dark, her hips a cradle for her backside. They fit together as no two other things do.

"Do you think we can save her?" Santana whispers long after everyone has fallen into fitful slumber but she remains awake, taunted by scenarios over which she has no control.

Brittany knows _no_ is the probable and right answer, but it is not what she needs to hear right now. So instead she says _yes_, promising upon her ancestors that they will reunite once again. It is flimsy at best, but it is all she has.

It is enough for Santana.

* * *

><p><em>The thing that haunts you so comes in the night. <em>

_ You feel it as you often do, slipping its eternal weight across your shoulders, sliding into the curl of your ear and the corner of your mouth. It pulls at your insides and lines your lungs with lead, slowing the movement of your chest to almost nothing at all. At such an uncertain time its confidence is grounding, allowing you to slip up and away from your mortal bindings. You know not where you run, but know it will never lead you wrong. _

_ Your shadow-steps take you across the water and through the trees, flickerings of a camp fire visible at times before it disappears once more. Together you run and jump and soar, flitting through the minds of men and taking the dreams from their heads, corrupting and tainting until they scream in the night._

_**What do you seek?**__ you ask of it, allowing it to guide your movements north. There is a quiet notion in the back of your mind that something is amiss with the way the ground rushes past your feet but you take no heed of it. How can something that feels so right be wrong? It stretches endlessly, anchoring itself under the nails of your right hand, until it is all you will ever be able to feel. The very deepest reaches of you feel bloated and taut with its healing poison, every thought you will ever spin tainted with its vast knowledge. You feel immortal. _

_**A boy,**__ it replies to you, bringing you to the edge of the water. Across the stream you see hide shelters that harbour stranded warriors, men who have come so far away from home to follow their puppet god. But there is no god here, no, nothing but you and the Old One that puts frost in your veins and power on your tongue. _

_ What it wants is in the middle of the camp, and you go to it, passing through structures with nary a whisper of sound. In them you see snippets of men sleeping, eating, and laughing, all enjoying the life that was so generously gifted to them. Some part of you thinks another has given them the will and the wisdom to do such things, but how could that be when the power around your shoulders deals nothing but death? It sparks a sense of disquiet within you, but it smothers the intrusive thoughts until you are subdued and submissive again, a host for its bidding. _

_ The boy you seek is one you know; hair curls over his shut eyes and his little body is spread large on the bedroll, still so small amongst the furs and the longsword laying by his side. He slumbers on, oblivious to you who hovers just over his face. It would be so easy to suck the life from his chest, to end it all before it truly has chance to begin... _

_**No,**__ whispers the thing inside you, __**he has another purpose.**__ You feel your skin thickening, taking on the beginnings of true flesh and bone rather than this dark, swirling mist. Burning light becomes eyes and tendrils become limbs, until you touch the earth with feet that are still not your own. A grin is tested on your new lips and it feels wrong, numb to you as another pulls your strings. _

_**"Wake," i**__t commands in your stolen voice, and his eyes snap open all at once. He rakes his __gaze over you, startled, before rolling from his bed and hefting his sword into his hands. The point touches your (its?) chin and your lips smile again, serene and quiet in all the ways you know it will only ever pretend to be. __**"Hello, William."**_

_ He stumbles for a moment, attempting to place a face to your voice in the darkness. Even from here you see it is a body you do not recognize, your borrowed hands as fair as newborn snow and your hair the colour of falling clay. What you assume to be your new eyes crinkle as you smile. _

_ "Who are you?" he attempts to demand, but his voice is so shaky and weak that it makes the darkness inside smirk cruelly, your false skin rippling for a moment as it fails to contain its excitement. The boy does not notice. _

_**"Do you not recognize the holy face of your mother?" **__it asks him, simpering, drawn into the picture of piety. William peers closer and frowns, the tip of his sword lowering to the ground. _

_ "My— my mother? I do not..." he pauses before his jaw goes slack for a moment, "Mother Mary?" _

_**"Very good, William. I knew I had made the right choice bestowing my blessing upon you."**__Trapped in its skin, you feel its joy in this deception as the boy falls heavily to his knees, bowing his head so that it almost touches the floor. Who is Mary? It is too occupied with the boy to soothe your confusion. _

_ William kisses your feet and it stops you from pulling away, twisting your lips back into a smile as it places one hand upon his head. You are helpless to watch as he murmurs "my lady, my lady" over and over again like a prayer. _

_**"Listen closely, little one, for I come to deliver a warning,"**__ it whispers to him, soft and sinuous like the underbelly of a snake. He leans, pressing his ear to its thigh, his spindly arms wrapping around both of you. His neck is so fragile under your hands and you ache to break the bone within. __**"The heathens have found powerful allies. You must strike while they do not expect it."**_

_Heathens? Which heathens? The sense of unease grows in your borrowed chest until it threatens to break the dreamlike tension that keeps you dull and complacent, but its grip is iron and keeps you restless under the surface of your skin. _

_ William looks up uncertainly, and in this light he seems so very young. "Uncle says we are going to set up a fort and wait them out... they know the snows. We can keep enough food by burning the coastal villages and watch as they lose force." _

_ It strokes his cheek tenderly and only you see the flash of pointed, ragged nails that sprout from these nubile fingertips before they vanish once again. __**"The snows have no meaning to them, my child. They have found giants from the north who are the forefathers of these mountains and who are part of the glaciers and storms themselves. Do you truly stand a chance against such powerful beings?"**_

_Giants? Pictures flash into your mind of two made of snow and silt, laughing with you, carrying you, protecting you. Your mind struggles to pull itself from the sludge and you force a twitch of movement from your false body, ignoring the oppressive weight of the darkness inside you that tries to coax you back down into nothingness. _

_ "Giants?" whispers the boy in awe. "They are just legends."_

_**"Legends live here, child. They have found the horsemen and the ghost riders who mount upon horned steeds. Your forces are greater, but theirs are powerful."**_

_You recoil in horror as your stolen mouth moves and pours forth secrets of your people upon the enemy's ears, smothering him in knowledge that is not his to know. Fully awake now, you rebel and throw yourself against the confines of this body, refusing the commanding voice that tells you to cease. Every time you hit its skin fractures for a moment, darkness seeping from its pores before it can be mended and sealed once again. Its face takes on that of an old, desiccated crone for a moment before righting itself, and William scrambles back in alarm._

_ It grimaces angrily, jerking back and forth as you struggle for control. __**"I must leave, child... the heathens know I come to you."**_ _It grunts as you almost succeed in returning to wherever you are supposed to be, back expanding grotesquely as you threaten to split the flesh. __**"But heed my warning and your forces will conquer the lands."**_

_ It howls as you finally break free, your fleshless body flying for a moment before falling through the earth and into a vast nothingness. You tumble and spin through endless space and time without anything to give you grounding, falling so fast in a worthless effort to escape the mocking laughter in your ears that follows you down. _

_**Too late, priestess, too late. You trusted for too long.**_

_ A distant form catches your eye and all of a sudden you are passing snowy mountains and bare-branched trees, your form moving through them without a care. There is a gleaming light that pulls you closer and upon further inspection it is a person. Two people, truly, but one has lost its light while the other glows. You catch the faintest glimpses of blue eyes before you fall into the dark one and you world suddenly stops spinning. _

Santana lifts from her resting place with a horrified gasp, rolling onto her side and coughing out lungfuls of that now familiar blackness. Her limbs tremble from falling though she lies still, and it is only those comforting pale hands upon her hips that stops the wracking sobs from coming forth. Brittany brushes her sweaty, damp hair from her face and coos nonsensical words until she calms enough to distinguish reality from her stolen dreams.

"Tell me what happened," Brittany says softly, directing her vision away from the others that watch them nervously from inside their own shelters. Santana closes her eyes and shakes her head, unwilling to face the repercussions of what she has done.

"Santana, please," Brittany begs, "you're scaring me."

Santana runs her tongue along her stained teeth, fighting the urge to retch again. She still feels it inside her lungs, tainting her breath and bones. There is no doubt that it watches them even now. (Why did she think it was blind to begin with?)

"The Old One, the darkness... it took me to Harald's camp. To the boy, William," she mumbles shakily, averting her eyes. "It called itself Mary and told him about our allies. Everything that I knew, he... he does too."

There is a scuffling sound and moments later Eirik appears, face crimson with his anger. He grabs Santana by the collar of her robe and heaves her standing until her toes barely touch the ground. "You _told_ him our plans?" he roars, veins in his temple throbbing. "How could you have been so stupid? So careless? Are you working with him to kill us? Is that it?"

"Do you think I wanted it to happen?" Santana screams at him in retaliation, squirming to free herself. "Do you think I want the nightmares or the blackness or the thoughts? This is the price I pay for the thing that will _save_ your ignorant self ten times over on the battlefield! When you are lying in the mud with no limbs, who will come and return them to your body?" She grins, wildly, her black teeth a sharp contrast to the whites of her eyes. "You know _nothing_ about sacrifice, little king."

Before he can rear and strike her down, Eirik howls as sharp teeth sink into the meat of his calf. Sandalio snarls and forces him to drop his mistress, yanking viciously on the muscle until blood pours from the wound. He refuses to let go until Santana crawls to safety, his powerful jaw detaching and opening into a threatening growl.

_Good boy,_ Santana whispers, exhausted, and his eyes cut to her momentarily in worry.

_Mistress?_ he asks hesitantly, licking his red lips. _Is Mistress well?_

_I am now, _she replies, beckoning him forward and away from Eirik who writhes on the ground, spitting violent curses and promises of revenge. _Such a good boy._

Haraldr finally steps forward, wary of the guard dog who growls even at him. "What does this mean, priestess?" he asks cautiously, glancing over to the distant crackle of the enemy's fires. "Do they have a god on their side?"

Santana smiles tiredly, leaning her head into Brittany's warmth.

"The darkness has no sides," she mumbles, closing her eyes, "it does not need to choose. It wants for something and thinks this will deliver it."

"What does it want?" the king asks urgently, crouching down to her level. It may just be a trick of the light, but he sees black veins running under the surface of her skin. "Can we sway it?"

"It wants to be remembered, my king, and I am starting to believe that when all is finally done, no one may ever forget it again."

* * *

><p><strong>November 7<strong>**th****, 912**

They are back in Avaldsnes by sun-high the following day, bringing with them what many others already knew.

Nor Veg is going to war.

They keep to themselves the fact that their tricks have already been thwarted, their plans already divulged. They know that Harald's forces are to the east and it is a long, cold march for that many men, so they are safe for a while longer. When the snows finally begin to anchor themselves down, the kingdom will become a stalemate until the thaw of spring, where horses may once again traverse the boggy mud roads and the oxen may pull the carts without becoming hopelessly mired in filth.

"What if they have already marched west?" Brittany whispered once, lip bitten in concern. "How do we know they are still there?"

Santana, unwilling to cast her mind from her body and risk entrapment again, has no answer for her. The spies have not told them any different, and it is from that they will cling to the hope of at least one part of their plans staying intact.

Upon departure Haraldr had wished them well, promising to see them again before the fighting starts. "Pay no mind to Eirik," he muttered. "The boy has his head so far up his rear he can see through his mouth."

_Disgusting_, Brittany had thought, but couldn't deny it was an accurate description.

_Perhaps he took some traits from his father, _Santana mused, only now hearing about the mass exodus that had occurred when Haraldr took the reigns. _He may be a cunning tactician and fierce warrior, but he is a shit politician._

_ I doubt Eirik will be any better._ Once Haraldr dies, his favourite son will take the throne. Despite quarrelling night and day he has always been the obvious choice (to the king).

They left with the giants once again crashing through the forests, their feet creating great plains of flat snow that have been crushed down by their weight. It has been storming in earnest, and Santana's cloak flies in the winds as they are whisked away. Her fingers have already gone numb where she grips onto Toppurinn's icy hair, pieces of it licking at her jaw.

The storm worsens, and by early nightfall they've had enough. Frost clings to Brittany's lashes and she sees her companion shivering without the ability to form her own fire, lack of a thick winter cloak working against her. Santana yells into the giant's ear to find shelter, and he grunts in response before flinging himself across a burbling river. Wind rips at their ears and like millions of little teeth as they land.

They crawl their way inside a copse of trees, sliding down a little hill until it cuts the wind away from them. Brittany grumbles something intelligible, but smiles as Santana takes her hands and stuffs them into the front of her robe, yelping as her freezing hands touch the warm skin of her breast. Despite her teeth chattering so hard she nearly cuts off her own tongue, Brittany has the presence of mind to smirk. "Not how I thought I would be touching you again," she mutters, leaning against the cold earth wall, "I had imagined it to be warmer... and more romantic."

Santana rolls her eyes but smiles regardless, shuffling alongside her until she can spark a flame in her palms and let it warm her companion's frozen skin; the light dances off her delicate cheekbones and her ocean eyes and her gold hair until her whole being seems lighter and it catches Santana off-guard, nearly burning herself as she watches Brittany with her nose so pink and her lips almost white. She is beautiful in a winter-goddess way; she imagines her in an icicle palace upon a frozen throne, watching the world go by. (But she could be summer too, or spring or fall. In reality, she could be anything she wishes to be.)

"You're staring again," Brittany whispers, their faces so close her frosted breath fans out against Santana's face. Santana gently tugs upon a golden strand of hair, pushing it from her eyes.

"Is that such a bad thing?" she responds with a smirk, enjoying the way her companion's gaze flutters to the wry spread of her lips for a moment.

"You should do it more often," is the breathless reply before she finds herself pressed into Brittany, her mouth being claimed by lips so soft and lacquered with a layer of frozen water that the duality makes her gasp, subconsciously opening her mouth for Brittany's probing tongue. Her touch eliminates the cold and she steadies Britanny as she threatens to push her over, choosing instead to cup her jaw with her smaller hands and bring them closer together.

It's always a different experience, kissing Brittany. Their bond makes it feel new but ancient every time, unfamiliar but practised. She can feel her heartbeat jump in her mind as she tugs on her lip gently with her teeth, the now-common pulsing sensation whenever she gets too close. It warms her, and Brittany says as much as she pulls away, eyes dark with desire. Santana grins proudly at her handiwork.

"I feel nice and warm now," Brittany mumbles, pressing her cold nose into the crook of Santana's neck. "You always make me feel tingly."

Pleased heat flushes through Santana's chest, and she puts one arm around Brittany's shoulders, drawing her close and stroking her snowy hair. Together they watch the blizzard howl, safe in their little corner where the earth takes pity, the trees and their bare branches gathering layers of fine dust.

"Has it ever been this bad?" Santana queries, shivering slightly as the vegetation moans along with the wind. "The winter, I mean."

Brittany squints for a moment as she thinks, eventually shaking her head. "No, the snows fall later when the days are much shorter. You were in Taunmark last winter, were you not?"

The ground had not yet been covered in paleness until she had spent a moon there, and even then it was slush that melted before the true freezing began. Santana huffs out a heavy breath, watching the way it mists the air.

"This is wrong, isn't it?" Brittany asks quietly. "Something is wrong."

"Something is very wrong," Santana agrees, but has no more time to dwell, for the giants return with their arms full of branches and saplings, pieces of evergreen needle ripped from their trunks to make a shelter. Together they build it around the two girls, sometimes shaking snow around their heads, but eventually creating a kind of humped hovel where they huddle inside, protected from the elements. A gentle white light burns from inside it, and Brittany pokes her head out momentarily in gratitude.

"I think we will stay here until the storms stop," she chatters, "you can do what you please... hopefully it should only last until tomorrow morn."

Stórhríð snorts, shaking his huge head. "When has luck ever been on our side, girl?" But they tramp off regardless, no doubt in search of anything edible to appease their massive appetites. The two girls settle down for the night, watching the storm howl from inside.

It lasts three days.

When the blizzard finally reduces to flakes falling slowly and lazily out of the sky, the world is covered in white. The giants are but two humps in the snow, their heavy exhales blowing their frosted beards out from under the covering with each breath. Little birds have perched upon the bare branches, and watch the two shake themselves awake after their hibernation, silent amongst themselves save for two massive black ravens that croak as they observe. Brittany's fingers pang when their beaks open wide and snap into the air.

"Ravens are ill omens," Santana grumbles, packing a snowball and throwing it in their direction. It misses by a mile but they flutter regardless to another branch, their offended caw echoing through the quiet wilderness. Despite the darkness in their eyes, they sport a human intelligence.

"These seem friendly," Brittany says, watching them watch her as they prepare to leave.

"Nuisances," she denies, "the only thing they are good at is making cloaks." She touches the outer layer of her own, almost to reassure herself that it is still present. They make their way to the giants rising from the snow, but Brittany struggles with the new terrain.

Santana notices and goes to her side, pressing a caring hand to the crook of her hip. "Do you want me to heal it?" she asks worriedly, unconvinced by the pained smile that appears on pale lips.

"Just a bit stiff after lying down for a few days," Brittany grunts, waving her off. "It feels better than it usually does, honest." Santana studies her for a few seconds before letting her go, albeit keeping an eye on her as she's lifted back onto Stórhríð's strong shoulders and carried out towards the roads of their original destination. It is more of the same, snow and ice and snow again, all blanketed by the eerie silence that has taken the wildlife. They move too quickly for the full effect, the giants' feet deafening as they crunch through the top layer that has frozen in the night.

Every day that passes sees the sun appearing for shorter periods of the day—Santana fears that one day it will be swallowed in its entirety, never peaking its face above the mountains. The giants say that is the case where they had made their home, moons and moons passing in darkness.

It sounds unbearable.

They run for hours on end in an effort to make up for lost time, bounding across cliffs and rivers. It has lost much of the paralysing, panic inducing terror that it once had, and can almost be described as exhilarating, the way the giants rear up and launch themselves through the sky, brushing the high branches of trees as they pass. From their backs she sees Nor Veg the way it was made to be seen, in all its expansive glory. It takes them two days to reach Kaupang this time, refusing to stop too long for rest. Even the trading town has been hit by the storms, their roofs layered with heavy snow, leaking into their homes and sending a chill to the ground. Their chimneys puff in earnest now, and through the little doorways they can spy glimpses of the women sewing new, warmer clothing for the men and themselves, keeping a watchful eye over the stew bubbling over the flame as their husbands and fathers and sons begin another day at work.

The workers greet them as they pass, offering a respectful hello, mindful of the giants and their watchful gaze. Brittany finds they're hassled much less with supernatural creatures ready to spring to their aid.

Before returning to her father they wander down to the docks, where they see Noach and his ship still in port. Santana's eyebrow raises in surprise. Surely he should have left by now with the repairs made to his sails and his hull, taking to the seas before this war lands on their doorstep. She sees the man himself and waves him down, much reminiscent of their first visit, shimmying down the giants to walk up and pretend to hate his crushing hug.

"You live!" he crows joyously, shaking her upon the shoulders so hard she fears her head will come loose. "The boys thought you were lost to the snows, they did, but I know you're far too stubborn a wench for that, yeah? Fight your way through hellfire and high water if you have to!"

Brittany scowls, coming to rest beside her. "Tell him not to call you that."

Santana turns her head to eye her companion sharply, brows furrowing. "How do you understand his speech?"

Brittany shrugs. "You talk in your sleep, and I can always understand you. This is a Santana thing, not a language thing."

The priestess shakes her head, returning to the sailor. "She says if you call me a wench again she will feed your prized parts to our dog."

A scoff from beside her followed by a bump to her hip, but Noach seems not to notice, instead inching back a few paces and subtly cupping his hands in front of himself. "He seems like a swell dog, surely he would take pity on his fellow male..."

"He just bit a prince because he was being mean," Santana says bluntly, and he retracts his statement. She shakes her head—they have things to do. "Why are you still here, Noach?" she asks plainly, crossing her arms. "Surely you should have left by now. Everyone talks of war, and it is only a matter of time before it reaches here. Harald and his army cares not where you are from, only where you are staying."

Noach shrugs with one shoulder, suddenly looking sheepish as he scratches the back of his neck. "We figure we would stay and help with the effort, yeah? It would seem a might cowardly if we were to sail off into the horizon and leave all of you to your death."

At Brittany's glare, he backpedals slightly. "Not that you would all die, surely, you have some fine warriors here... but we would feel ill to simply abandon a place that has been nothing but good to us for, what, three seasons now? Perhaps we folk won't be the ones holding the sword, but we will certainly make sure everyone has one."

"That is the least offensive thing that has ever come from your mouth," Santana exclaims in amazement, lips pulling up into an impish grin. "I believe it was a trick of my imagination. Say it again."

"Not a chance," he smirks in return, ruffling his ridiculous hair he has obviously decided to keep. One of his mates yells for him to stop flirting with danger and he laughs, waving him off. "Work to do, people to bribe," Noach explains, turning to talk to them as they walk away, "you better come see me before the battle starts, priestess! Would hate for my beautiful face to be ruined in the fighting and you have forgotten what it looked like forevermore!"

"As if I would ever forget that mug," she mutters good-naturedly, waving until he turns his attention back to his chores. Brittany smiles and nudges at her with her foot. "You like him anyway," she teases, "I can see it. He might be a fool, but he is a kind fool."

"I could say the same for you," Santana taunts back, looping their arms together and tugging her along to stroll around the dock. She could say it was to see the sights, but in reality, she wants a moment of relative tranquillity with Brittany before they have to descend back into the madness of politics and planning that has taken over their lives as of late. The ravens have followed them home and watch them even now, unseen in the bustle of the crowd, but so obvious to her. It almost looks like they whisper to each other, hopping this way and that as they think of things she can only dare to wonder.

Brittany pulls her from her thoughts by dragging her to a vending stall, touching all the shiny objects in awe and desperately wanting every last one of them. She ends up buying a new brooch for Santana's cloak; Thor's mighty hammer glows in the sun.

"I know you may not believe in him, and I understand that, but I do. So now you can look at this clasp, and no matter what is happening or where we are, I will always be with you. Even if I feel mad or upset with you, this is telling you that I will always, _always_ lo- uh, care for you."

(Santana hears the slip of her tongue, and has to think of a million petty reasons not to cry in the middle of the marketplace.

Or kiss her, either.)

They wander with a lightness in their chests, eventually buying Brittany a new cloak for the winter and Sandalio a large bone that he runs off with as soon as they hand it to him. They look after him fondly as he disappears into the crowd.

"Do you ever think Sandalio will find a nice lady dog?" Brittany asks, swinging their joined pinkies as they make their leisurely way back to her father's longhouse. Santana smiles warmly and shrugs in return, absently playing with the long strands of Brittany's hair that have come out of her ever-present braid.

"Perhaps... he _is_ the finest male one could hope for." Loyal, brave and relentless. What more could a dog want to raise her pups?

Brittany dips to her as if to tell a secret; her breath ghosts against Santana's cheek and it's embarrassing how after so long, something so simple elicits a shiver from her. "If men were really like that," she whispers mischievously, "perhaps I would have gone for one of them, but it seems no one lives up to my expectations. Maybe I could take Sandalio as my husband?"

Santana chokes on a laugh that draws attention to them, covering her mouth with her hand as Brittany draws back with a smug grin. "I-I do not believe your father would be too happy with that, Britt," she snickers, "and for good reason. Your sons would be pups!"

The thought causes Brittany to stop, her brow scrunching in thought. "Could that happen? Can we try? You could magic them into being."

"Ugh, forget I said anything at all."

They finally find themselves in front of the familiar blue longhouse, the thick scent of smoke wafting from outside. Brittany makes to go in but Santana shakes her head, squeezing her fingers momentarily before dropping the embrace. "There is something I need to do first, but I will meet you for the evening meal," she promises. "Try not to volunteer for any more adventures?"

Brittany wrinkles her nose at her and Santana giggles, drawing her close for a hug. "And, just so it is known... I will always love you too."

Before Brittany has a chance to respond, Santana has already walked away with a shy smile thrown in her direction.

If this is love, she wants it forever.

* * *

><p>Entering the longhouse with a beaming grin, Brittany barely notices the murmuring as she passes through, head held high and proud. Santana loves her! <em>Her!<em> The notion is so absurd to begin with that she has trouble wrapping her head around the matter, but her mind keeps circling back to that one solid point that will forever define (so she thinks) her interaction with the world. Santana is her _lover. _Her soulmate. Do souls even have mates?

So caught up in this complication she nearly knocks Mikhail over where he strides towards her, yelping and grabbing onto his broad shoulders for stability. He steadies her with a smile, patting her bicep affectionately.

"Caught up in your own head, are we?" he jests, noticing her dopey smile. "Sometimes I think you could never be a warrior with the way you trip over your own feet."

She swats him half-heartedly, unable to put true venom into the sting. "Hush. It... it has simply been a good day."

He hums doubtfully but walks with her regardless to the mead hall, where it is strangely quiet for such a cold day (all days are worthy of drinking, but none more so than cold days). Her father is sitting upon his chair, as per his usual fare, slouched with an unusually ponderous expression upon his face. Brittany glances to Mikhail in confusion.

"You were late returning and it had him worried," he explained. "We expected you back days ago."

"A snowstorm stranded us at the bottom of a hill," Brittany sighs in remembrance, "it was strange, came from nowhere like the gods had simply decided to place clouds all across the sky. We were stuck for days."

"Good thing you had the jotnar, then," Mikhail pauses when Betar notices them, "I will take my leave. Good luck, Bretagne." He bows out and returns to his duties, leaving Brittany almost alone with her father. He smiles and opens his arms to her, to which she responds with a tight hug that nearly crushes his ribs. She breathes in the scent of his hair as a thrall pulls up another chair, upon which she sits.

"Glad to see you well, my daughter. Your limp is better than it was." She nods and bounces her right leg up and down, grateful for the slight discomfort.

"Not healed yet, but close. Being snowed in for days without movement did wonders."

It's obvious he's aching for information about their travels so she obliges, speaking of everything from her initial brush with Haraldr and Eirik (_he challenged you? that corpse-eater!)_ to their journey north and the meeting with Harald. She goes over the capture of Santana's mother sadly and the near-explosion it resulted in, ending with the Old One and its divulging of their plans. Betar leans back for a moment, troubled, his eyes dark and brooding.

"This... entity. What is it? A god?"

Brittany shrugs helplessly. "She seems to believe so. It used to just be the _darkness_, but she began calling it the Old One recently. No one ever gave it a name."

Betar frowns. "This is not simply the work of Loki? Surely a mad god can do such things."

But Brittany remembers the dreaming and the crying and the retching, the draugr in the night and the corruption on her breath. "A mad god wants to cause trouble, not slaughter. The village up north, it... it was senseless, father. People lay scattered everywhere, their limbs torn off, their blood creating rivers in the streets. I had never seen anything so horrible, not even during the raids. The only reason I stayed was because Santana wished to burn it down."

"Did that rid it from the earth?"

Despite herself, she scoffs. "Do you think a fire would destroy something that can raise the dead?"

Betar lounges in his seat for a moment, stroking at his beard. Brittany can see the wheels turning in his head and knows whatever he might come about with will undoubtedly displease her.

"I think that... until this is resolved, we should keep a more watchful eye on Santana."

Brittany frowns, crossing her arms defensively. "Why? She isn't the one doing all this."

Betar sighs. "I realize that, Bretagne, but what if it begins to talk to her? What if it tells her to do things?"

"It already talks to her," she mutters petulantly, not counting on her father picking up her grumbled utterance. His frown turns into a scowl then, his massive body leaning forward to look her in the eye.

"Are you telling the truth?"

"Why would I lie about something like this?" Brittany cries, torn between anger and desperation. "I like it no more than you do, but it has become something that we just have to deal with. She fights it, she _always_ fights it, and she still has the white power to use. She can melt mountains into liquid and keep our people warm through this cursed winter. Can anyone else do that?"

Betar wants with all his heart to believe in Brittany's want to see the best in her friend, but he only knows of what he's been told, of a powerful, dark creature that has latched itself onto a person living in _his_ village, under _his_ daughter's roof (in his daughter's bed), and shows a declining respect for law and nature alike. What happens if she loses compassion entirely? What could she do?

As if sensing his thoughts, Brittany vehemently shakes her head. "No, Santana would never hurt people like it does. She complains about caring for them, but secretly she would hate to do them wrong, even if she would go to her grave swearing otherwise. I saw how mad she got when one of the village girls put the others in danger." _And maybe because the whole room smelled like shit,_ she reflects, but he didn't need to know that. Seeing him unconvinced, she goes instead for the blame. "You let Styrr into the village when it was obvious something was wrong with him."

Betar frowns, defensive. "Nothing was wrong with him. He was just a bit... abrasive."

"Abrasive?" Brittany snaps, sharply, a feat in itself. (She's been spending too much time with Santana.) "No, _Santana_ is abrasive. He _brought_ the darkness into the village! I saw it too! Without him, this conversation would never have happened!"

Becoming visibly upset, Brittany shrinks back into her seat in an effort to escape his probing gaze. After a tense few moments she hears him sigh, the beads tinkling in his hair as he runs his hand through his long red locks.

"Fine," he says tiredly, trying to catch her gaze. "So long as she does nothing to put any of us in danger, she can do as she pleases. I trust you. But if she steps out of line, I will deal with her as I would deal with anyone else. Do you understand?"

Brittany bites her lip before nodding hesitantly, her eyes drawn to a shadow's movement at the far end of the hall. How strange...

"Now, before you left, there was something I needed to tell you." This draws her attention and she glances at him, noting how his face has morphed into something of nervous apprehension. It makes her doubtful. "You have reached eighteen winters, my love, and within these eighteen winters I have seen you grow into a beautiful young woman. You have brought honour to this household, but now it is time for a different kind of honour to be sown alongside."

A creeping dread invades her, smothering any last vestiges of warmth that Santana's declaration had placed, and she watches him with wide eyes as he looks to his left where the shadow has once again flit into vision.

"I know we talked about this, but with war so close... it cannot be helped. You are too old to be running about on adventures untethered." He takes a deep breath, hating the way understanding slowly begins to dawn on her face, and with it denial. "I, Betar Silver-Spear, jarl of Kaupang and guardian of Vestfold, present Bretagne Piersson to her betrothed."

And from the darkness, with his smug smirk and fine clothes, steps Finngeirr.


	21. Chapter 21

****A/N: Just a quick little note here to thank everybody for the fact that we've now tipped over 300 reviews, and also to calm themselves and take a few deep breaths. Just because something happens now doesn't mean that it'll happen for the entire story, just as the absence of something doesn't mean it won't ever happen. Just stick with the ride and I promise you'll have a good time. (Also, thanks to my beta, **LeMasquerade** for help with this, who can now never escape me as I've secured her skype. Sucks to be you!)

If I messed up my French, let me know. It's been a while.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 21<strong>

**bury me alive**

**because I won't give up without a fight**

**November 12th, 912 **

Silence reigns for a few moments as those left in the mead hall hold their breath, all eyes riveted to Brittany, who has taken to staring at her father with such an empty gaze that it threatens to rend his soul in two. Her fingers shake upon the arms of the chair and create a frenzied sort of _tap tap tap_ that has the spectators murmuring amongst themselves, warily backing to the far end of the room but unwilling to exit completely lest they miss the undoubtedly spectacular blowout to come. Mikhail hunches in the far corner, his head bowed nearly to the floor in an effort to avoid the conflict, like a bad dream come to life.

"No..." is the quiet utterance that Brittany finally manages to get out, her eyes flickering momentarily over to Finngeirr before returning to her father. She looks at him as if a stranger stands before her, taking in the deep furrows of his brow and the deep-set tiredness of his eyes; the face of a leader.

The face of a traitor.

"You promised," she whispers, at first drowned out by her father's plea for her to understand, but as she stands and sends the chair scattering behind her, it turns into a screech that makes her teeth bare and her voice crack, achingly high.

"You _promised!_" It rolls through the hall as she clenches her fists, eyes blazing. Those so used to her blank expressions and vacant smiles flinch back as if struck, glancing up at the girl who has seemed to gain inches in her fury. Even her father looks startled, looking up at his baby girl and the way her enraged eyes glisten with tears. "You promised me you would never do this, and you lied! You lied to me!"

Betar rises, and it startles him to realize they now stand on equal grounds. (When did she grow up so fast?) "No one knew this war was to come, Bretagne! If you had your way, we would still be outnumbered by three to one, and you would watch as Kaupang burned around you! You know I would only consider this as a last resort."

"Would you?" she asks in a way that turns into a sneer. "Are you certain? You wanted to marry me off so badly _before_ this war even started. To him, no less. Do you think me stupid?"

The jarl scowls, pounding his fists against his thighs. "You know that is not what I think."

"Then why try and pair me with this... this... _imbecile?_ This carrion-eater? Is there truly nobody left to wed the poor, dumb Piersson girl who would rather run in the mud than take a husband?"

Finngeirr steps forward; his belt jangles with his movements and the sound grates at her ears. "Bretagne, are you insulting your future husband?" he asks with a hint of a smile upon his lips, but his eyes are darker, holding secrets and threats and all other things she doesn't want to see.

"No," she rebukes, wiping furiously at her eyes with the back of her hand, "because you are not my husband. You will _never_ be my husband."

All pretences drop, and his face turns into a thunderous scowl. Yet, all he manages to look is confused and slightly frustrated. It baffles her. "Your father has made the deal. It cannot be changed."

"It was made without my consent!" she hisses, but knows that means nothing.

He seems to know it too, if the triumphant smirk on his face is anything to understand. Brittany growls and shoves at him, sending him staggering back a few feet. His body wheels before regaining its balance and he looks at her as if she has lost her mind.

Maybe she has. All she can hear is a constant feedback loop of _he promised why me why now not him please no _that drowns out all semblance of reasonable thought until tears once again spring to her eyes, this time falling and winding themselves down the strong, sharp slope of her jaw.

"I thought I could trust you," she whispers to her father, half-heartedly wiping at her cheeks. Her breath hitches and she swallows the sob that threatens to come forth, refusing to focus on the angry throb inside her chest akin to a knife through her belly. "I suppose I was wrong. Go and lead your people... you obviously value them over me."

"Bretagne—" He reaches for her, but she is already gone, sprinting through the mead hall the best her injured hip can allow. Her vision is blurry with tears and her whole being aches with betrayal but still she runs, shouldering through the door and knocking a villager away in her haste. She doesn't stop to apologize, looking around aimlessly for a moment before taking off towards the forests.

_What am I going to do?_ she laments to herself as she runs, allowing the heave of her own breath to lull her into some sort of suspended state of grief. _He will push for the wedding to be soon, and short of killing him, nothing will break this bargain..._

Brittany may be hurt and angry, but she is not willing to cut the boy's throat and start a second war to sit alongside the first. His life is not worth the strife that it would cause.

_And if the wedding does go through? Oh gods, I would have to lay with him._ The mere thought is enough to send her stomach into turmoil, and she staggers to a stop along the side of the road to breathe heavily through her nose in an effort not to retch. Her lineage would expect a babe, a bonding of the two bloodlines together in a way that cannot be undone. The brief, flitting imagine of rearing a child with _him_ sends her gorge over the edge and she vomits into the bushes, coughing once or twice and feeling her tears drip down her nose.

Brittany leans heavily against a naked tree and allows her breathing to slow down gradually, focusing on the cold of the outdoors rather than her own swirling thoughts. _And all of this before I ever had the chance to lay with Santana..._

As if summoned, another voice invades her head.

_Brittany?_ comes Santana's call, worried and yet somehow distorted, an echo following her question. Brittany frowns but ignores it, desperate for her touch.

_I need you, _she begs, and her lover hears the unspoken request.

_Come to your home, _Santana says soothingly, _I will be there._

Brittany almost sobs in relief and hauls herself to a standing position, looking around once or twice to retrieve her bearings. She decides to cut through the forest rather than return to town; they will undoubtedly come looking for her and perhaps her footsteps will lead them astray, if only for a little while. She stuffs snow in her mouth to erase the sour taste that lingers, grimacing at the cold but welcoming the sting. Santana's constant presence in her head pushes away the panic that bubbles under the surface until she staggers into the yard of her hovel, almost tripping through the doorway as she stumbles inside. Almost immediately there are arms circling her, warm from the fire that crackles in the hearth, and her face is buried in the furry shoulder of the worn wolf. Brittany clutches to her and refuses to let go.

Santana murmurs nonsensical words as she carefully guides them into a seated position by the fire, stroking her hair and wiping the tears from her eyes. In this light she looks different; sharper, a more deadly beauty surrounding her, but Brittany blames it on the way her lashes clump together and obscure her vision.

They sit together with nothing but the odd sniffle escaping Brittany until she can manage to draw breath again, swallowing heavily and resting her cheek on Santana's breastbone.

"Father has betrothed me to Finngeirr," Brittany says quietly, and the muscles under her cheek bunch swiftly.

"He did what?" Santana's voice is doing that strange, echoing thing again, except it's no longer in her head—Brittany looks up and her companion looks furious, her eyes glaring daggers into the flame. She's seen that look one too many times and hastens to cup her cheek, forcing her gaze to the side.

"Whatever you are thinking of, stop it," she commands softly, "nothing good will come of threats and violence." She ignores the hypocrisy behind the command; Santana doesn't need to know.

Santana bites her lip so hard she fears she will draw blood for a second before letting out a reluctant nod—her muscles are still tense, but her hands no longer grip so tightly to the sides of Brittany's jerkin. "What will you do?"

Brittany's face twists into misery again, pressing her cheek so hard against Santana she just wishes to merge into one being. "What _can_ I do? Despite being a shield-maiden, my father is still my guardian. If I deny his wishes, I risk being exiled from the village."

There is nary a fate worse than that of the outcast, doomed to wander the forests with the brand of shame forever upon their brow.

The hands running up and down her back stall momentarily, and Brittany hears the heavy swallow from above. "Does this mean you are going to... accept his wishes?" She hears the pain in her voice through she tries to mask it, and even the thought makes Brittany grimace.

"No, I will find some way of escaping it. Perhaps we can delay it long enough that the war will pass, a-and then we can run! Iberia, perhaps. I do want to see your camels, San."

"_Gamal_," Santana corrects fondly, stroking a lock of fallen hair from Brittany's eyes, "and perhaps we can. But are you so willing to leave everything behind and bring shame upon your family? I know how much your honor means to you northerners."

Brittany chews on her lip, eventually shaking her head. "Father will be mad for a while, but he will grow to understand. It is his honor shamed for pairing me with such a coward."

The priestess hums her agreement. "There are millions of men a better being than him."

"Yes, but few who have such a powerful bloodline," Brittany mutters angrily, sitting up on her own. "We are not so desperate for men that we will put our standards so low for more... the majority of Harald's army is far away, and the king's thegns are still arriving from across the land. Father wishes for his allegiance more than my happiness."

Santana strokes her hair in an effort to calm her; usually it is her angry at the world, and it unsettles her to see her happy, cheerful viking so furious. It seems wrong, an imbalance in the way of all things. "You are a powerful piece, it seems."

"I just thought I was more important," Brittany says bitterly, scowling at the fire. If she sees her father in a month it will be too soon...

Santana's eyes slide to the door, chasing an unknown sound. "Your father comes," she mumbles softly; the flap separating them from the outside world blows open, sending freezing air into the space. Brittany's skin erupts into bumps as the lone, large figure enters the space. She doesn't have to look at him to know Santana is right.

"Go away," she grumps, crossing her arms over her chest, "I'm angry at you."

"Bretagne, please, I just wish to discuss this with you for a moment," Betar pleads, crouching down to her height, glancing at the dark, dark eyes riveted on his form just a few feet away. (Never has he seen so much hatred in one single stare.)

"There is nothing to discuss!" She swats his hand away when he reaches for her, standing up and backing away. "You cannot convince me that what you are doing is for anyone other than yourself!"

He growls angrily, affronted. "I am doing this for Kaupang! These people need strength!"

"Strength? Finngeirr and his clan have three hundred men loyal to them, at _most_. Some of them dislike you, and even more so Haraldr. How are you going to convince them to come?"

"Bretagne, please, do this for our family. Your mother would have wanted—"

"Mother would have wanted me to be _happy_!" Brittany yells, her cheeks flushed with anger. "I remember her too! You think I was too young, but I do! I remember that village and how she carried me through the smoke that _your_ people created, how you buried my friends and neighbours in their own homes! She was the _only_ person who cared enough to rescue me and she died for me! Can you claim that?"

"These people are your people," Betar attempts to soothe, ever aware of the curious gaze Santana has placed upon them, "ever since you came to Kaupang? Remember? You said it yourself."

Oh, she remembers—riding in the longship upon the knee of Betar, who seemed a giant to one so young. She still had blood upon her hands then, not yet washed by the embrace of the ocean.

"You never asked about it," she says, disbelief only now colouring her tone, "you never asked about my country... what was it called? Holland? I don't remember anymore... my name is the only thing I kept. You never asked about the neighbour with the nice cow or the vendor that sold those stupid hats or even how your _own_ wife died to save me from her _own_ people."

She remembers the days after the attack vaguely, but the day of the raid? It is still etched into her memory like a burn that will never heal—she remembers wandering barefoot amongst the rubble, stubbing her little toes as she stepped over corpses of the people she knew. She was young, then. Only three or four summers old. She didn't know enough to understand why the men came into her village and burned _everything_ to the ground.

Betar raises his hands in an attempt to make peace, pleading. "Bretagne, _please_," his tone begs, desperate, "speak no further of this. It is in the past."

No matter how many winters roll by, the absence of his wife is a stab to his chest, a sucking wound that never covers nor heals. Her words are knives that cut, bringing the sharp clarity back to a memory that is impossible to forget.

Brittany growls, finally turning on him. "Are you sure it is in the past?" she snaps in return, taking a menacing step forward; Santana's eyes catch hers and the warning in them is enough to drive her back. "You use Mother as a reason, as if I did not know her either, as if I did not _love_ her like you. I knew her for a few hours, but I loved her like _nobody else could_! She took that spear for me, you know? It could have been me. She had no obligation, no reason, but she took it for me."

She remembers the woman collapsed on the floor, blonde hair fanned out upon the floor like a blood-stained halo. She remembers taking her sheathed knife and driving it into the bad man's thigh, striking and slashing until she sobbed uncontrollably and he slumped to the ground, his blood meeting with hers. Above all, she remembers her true, precious mother stroking the bangs from her face and whispering how loved she was, how proud she'd be of her in the years to come. Brittany held her hand as she died and vowed to never forget the face of such a valiant warrior.

"She gave her blood so I could be part of the north," she wipes at her eyes with the heel of her hands, sniffling, "and she would want that blood to be happy and healthy and honorable. Nothing more."

"Oh, my child..." Betar thinks of comforting her, but the dark, venomous gaze has him standing still instead. "She would be so very proud of you. You are exactly like her, right down to how she preferred her mead. The gods gave my wife a perfect daughter to live through."

Brittany eyes him. "But you still want me married to t-that... _oaf,_" she accuses angrily, wiping the last of her tears from her eyes.

"You said yourself that your mother would want you to be honorable—that is what women do to bring honor to the family. I can find you a different husband, if you would like. As long as you are happy with him," Betar sighs restlessly, firm but apologetic. "You knew this day would come for many years, Bretagne. It does you no good to fight it."

They watch as her fingers skate upon her braided belt, skimming over her axe and her waterskin to rest upon her knife. "The gods gave you a daughter, but you wanted a son, didn't you?" Brittany asks softly, gripping the handle more firmly. "That was all you ever wanted. A son to carry your line." She yanks it from its sheath. "I can give you that instead."

Her fingers grip the sides of her tunic and she rests the knife against her collar so it tears down the middle, the cotton giving way under her strength. Santana sees the pictures in her mind a moment before they happen; she shouts in unison with Betar as Brittany brings the knife up to her left breast, the razor edge cutting the skin.

"Brittany—"

"No, stop—"

A roaring noise invades her home like a million voices speaking all at once—the lanterns snuff out with a sigh and her hands are yanked apart, her fingers crushed to the handle of her knife. In disbelief, she follows the dark tendrils that have ensnared her limbs, tracing them back to Santana's outstretched palms; they bloom from her hands as plants do from soil, roots anchored somewhere out of sight.

"What are you _doing?_" she whispers fearfully, recoiling as they snake up her arms, their dull heartbeat pulsing along their trunk until she sees it breathe with Santana's lungs, her priestess with eyes black as night and the darkness that seethes all around her.

"Please don't do this," Santana replies, tightening her hold upon her lover when she attempts to shift. "I will be with you no matter what the outcome may be."

_I love you as you are,_ Brittany hears in her head, muddled with shadow yet still so clear. The tendrils loosen their grip and the knife falls to the ground, laying amongst the dirt without a sound.

Betar stands, his eyes riveted to the sticky dark that has attached to his daughter like sickness, covering her arms and fists. "Get away from her, _seiðr-witch_!" he shouts, but Santana stomps upon the ground and another writhing limb bursts from nothingness, striking him across the chest and anchoring him to a chair. Her breath frosts where it gathers, a coldness coming from deep inside her.

"Leave her alone!" Brittany yells in retaliation as she tries to yank her arms free.

Santana smiles, the expression dark and full of twisted satisfaction. "This is only happening because you willed it to be so," she reminds the jarl, keeping him in his seat when he snarls and attempts to rush her.

"Santana, stop it," Brittany snaps. "Let him go."

Her black eyes slide to the warrior a moment, contemplating, until the darkness melts away and seeps back into the soft earth. Brittany staggers as her balance is returned to her, Betar leaping from his seat the moment the sticky limbs release him. He looks between them for but a moment before taking his instinct seriously and bolting from the room, leaving nothing in his wake except a string of muttered curses.

Santana sways on the spot as she returns to herself, rubbing at her temple in confusion and touching the dark substance that leaks from her eyes. She feels so light, removed of an invisible burden she didn't know she had. "Brittany?" she asks tentatively, her hand reaching forward for her companion only to draw back a moment later when she moves out of reach.

"Look at what you've done," Brittany mutters, glancing around the room. Almost nothing seems amiss, but the whole air is wrong and tainted, bloated with ill intentions.

"I was only trying to—"

"No! And you are _not_ helping!" Brittany cries, turning on her. "What was that just now? Do you think I am blind, Santana? Do you think I am _oblivious_ to the way you are changing? I worry for you every _single _day, more so than for every person in Kaupang! This magic is disgusting and bad for you and yet you want it more than you want me!"

Silence falls and Brittany sits heavily on the bed, cradling her head in her trembling hands. Everything is happening so fast and out of her control, the days rushing by before she can grab them and hold on. She feels Santana's presence in the air around her, stunned and speechless, but can't bring herself to say anything to soothe the blow. This... she is not fit to be a leader. Her father can have his chair and his village; all of these problems have finally broken her dwindling sanity.

Yet when her companion turns to leave and strand her with her doubts, she speaks up.

"I... I'm sorry. You can be mad at me, but please don't leave." She doesn't look up from where she has buried her wet eyes in her palms, but she feels the pause in Santana's form a moment before the bed dips beside her. A tentative hand smooths over her shaking shoulders and she swallows her first sob.

They sit without sound for a few moments, the slice on her breast still throbbing, before Santana decides to speak.

"I know you do not understand... and how could you, really? This is something even I have trouble comprehending," she says softly, running her hand up and down Brittany's spine, wanting so desperately to take away the problems that make it bow like an old man. "But the war is almost here, and with this we _will_ win. I can feel it. And once we do, I will stop and our life can be our own again."

Brittany sniffles lowly, wiping at her eyes. "Do you want to stop?" she asks quietly, as if afraid of the answer.

Santana ponders her response for a minute. Does she want to give up the power that rises her well beyond anything else she has ever imagined? No, not at all. If she could she would cherish it forever, use this force as a means to bring an end to all that would ever try to harm Kaupang and those she loved again. But she sees how much pain she causes the person that means the world to her, how it wounds her every time she turns away or brushes off an incident as nothing. The nightmares, though now familiar, are nothing close to an old friend.

(Though she has not thought about her in too long, she misses Ataecina and her light.)

With that in mind, it is with confidence that she can assert her answer. "Yes," she says firmly. "I do, and I will for you."

Brittany's smile is watery but sincere, though her next question is cautious. "Can you?"

It is there that the waters muddy, and Santana's grimace is unsure. "I hope so." _I don't know._

Brittany leans carefully into her side, her head burrowing into the crook of her neck. "I feel like if I don't hold on, I will lose you," she reveals, her voice so small that Santana's heart breaks from it. She places a firm kiss to her temple and cradles her like one would a fragile child.

"Never," she promises into her hair. "Nothing could ever take me away."

* * *

><p>Santana is awakened in the night to a hand stroking her cheek and warm breath upon her face.<p>

She rouses from sleep cautiously, opening one eye to trace Brittany's familiar outline in the gloom. No light yet pours from the single open shaft in their ceiling, and only a dim light flickers from the mounted horns upon their walls, yet she can see that Brittany has drawn her cloak tight around herself; the gleam of her weapons against her hips betrays her state of dress.

"Brittany, what—" she is interrupted by a welcome kiss, temporarily becoming lost in her own mind before her lover pulls back, stroking her gloved hand along Santana's jaw.

"I have to go for a little while," she murmurs, unwilling to break the silence that has settled about them, "I will return in a few suns, I swear it, but there is something I need to do."

"Go?" Santana sits up blearily, rubbing at her eyes. "Where are you going?"

"West," Brittany whispers urgently, "I must go west. There is some unfinished business with Haraldr that I must complete."

To Haraldr? What do they still need from that warrior-king? "Is your father sending you?" she asks out of trepidation, half expecting a marriage ceremony to be performed upon the doors of Avaldsnes and the king's throne. There is the fleetest glimpse of a sheepish smile in the dark; despite herself, Santana's lips twist up into a disbelieving smirk. "You go without him knowing?"

"I would go without anyone knowing, but I could not simply leave you without saying anything. My heart would not let me, traitor that it is."

Santana's heart drops into her belly at the thought of staying in Kaupang without Brittany, but she sees the determined gleam in her eyes and knows there is no persuading her to remain at home. "Will you let me come with you?" she asks instead, leaning into Brittany's strong hand fondly.

Brittany hesitates but eventually shakes her head. "No... you have to remain here, to show them that I will return. If we both leave, they will think we have abandoned the village."

"But... I cannot simply wait here for you like a housewife! What if you are injured or captured? I know your tendencies to become lost." The mention makes Brittany blush, visible in the dark, but still she refuses.

"Please, Santana, do this for me. This is something I must do on my own, just this once. I will not leave your side until the battle if that is your wish, but before that, this must be done." She kneels then, pressing their foreheads together until their breath mingles as a single entity. Santana feels the resolve flow through her and sighs, realizing Brittany believes this is a thing that she must do on her own. Despite being worried for her warrior, she will respect her wishes and let her go. "Father will be furious. Please do not let him do something he would regret."

A ghost of a smirk travels upon Santana's lips. "He could not hurt me if he tried," she promises, stealing a quick kiss in reassurance. "Be safe?"

"Always." Brittany hugs her tight before standing up, drawing her new cloak around her front to shield her from the worst of the winds. "If you need me," she taps her temple, "you need only call." And with those words she is gone, left to the mercy of the snows in a flurry of hides.

Santana shivers, drawing herself into a tight ball. The light seems to dim in the absence of her constant companion, and the night is darker now, more menacing. But she knows no good would come of convincing Brittany to stay, or to accompany her. Whatever this quest may be, it must be something she does on her own, despite the more than suspicious timing. The priestess whistles; moments later she hears snuffling, followed by a furry body bouncing onto the bed and burrowing itself deep into the covers to press against her side.

He isn't Brittany, but he'll do.

...

She is awoken a second time before morning, only this time, it is more than unwelcome.

Her first moments in the waking world are a cacophony of shouting and angry barking and the disorientation that comes with being unceremoniously tugged from her bed. She coughs as the large hand that has gathered her robe at the nape of her neck shakes her furiously back and forth, making her head loll bonelessly for a moment before she can regain her bearings.

Despite being endlessly annoyed, she can't help but smirk as her eyes focus on Finngeirr's infuriated gaze staring back.

"Where is she?" he yells into her face, hoisting her higher until her knees are lifted from the bed. Sandalio makes to lunge but she snaps a mental command and he instead holds still, every hair on end, his chest vibrating with the force of his growl. "Tell me!"

"Who?" Santana asks smugly, both her eyebrows raising mockingly. "I have no idea of who you might be yelling about."

"Stop playing games with me, priestess!" he threatens—or at least, he attempts to. It just makes him look stupid and inexperienced to her. "We know you know where she went."

"Do I?" she parts her lips in a gasp, her eyes narrowing with amusement. "Who is we, boy? Is it the imaginary friends you pretend to have so you may forget how much of an incompetent idiot you are, or maybe those little trolls you like to keep around you as a reminder that you will only be able to ever befriend animals, because you are not such an improvement from them? It would not surprise me if your dead father was killed by a troll... or perhaps _was_ a troll. That would explain your garishly long limbs and dull temperament."

He growls and makes to throw her against the wall of her home, but her face twists into a frightening grimace and he finds himself being flung back instead, impacting a table with a low, meaty thud. Santana bares her teeth in a snarl as she lands heavily upon her bed, the dark tendril retreating back into her open palm from where it sits upon her knee. "Try that again, fool, and you will lose more than just your pride."

Surprisingly he does not tuck tail and run, instead shakily getting up and facing her, albeit keeping his distance. He eyes her sitting form warily, the black hair scattered about her shoulders and the downward tilt of her head, all serving to obscure her angry eyes.

"Tell me where she is," he starts again, albeit with less shouting than before, "or I will tell the jarl that you were the one that killed the priest."

Her head snaps up, and he flinches at her bottomless glare. "You have no _proof_," she hisses venomously; his adrenaline makes it seem like two people speak with her voice. Unsettling.

"Who else can melt off a man's face?" he challenges in return. "There are three magic users in this village—one of them barely wants to touch anything lest she get a disease, another is so focused on being strange and demeaning that he has no time for normal folk, and the other... oh, look," he takes a lumbering step forward, "is a complete and utter bitch who likes to play with fire! I wonder which one it is?"

Another blow sends him flying except this time it follows him—Finngeirr coughs and splutters as the darkness pins him to the wall by his throat, spreading and blocking his airway. Santana advances leisurely, one hand stretched out before her, the _thing_ coming seemingly outwards like an extension of her own being. He whimpers in fear as she approaches with a pitying smile.

"You should be mourning the fact that Brittany has left for a while," she says softly; a branch of the tendril grows from the base and strokes at his cheek in what was supposed to be a soothing manner. "She is my kindness and my conscience, all wrapped up into one beautiful person. What do you think that makes me when she is gone?"

"A-a m...mon-s-s-sterrr," he chokes out, trying to scramble away when she lets out a laugh.

"Is that what you think? Oh, no," she chuckles, shaking her head, "you have it all wrong, little man. There are _far_ worse monsters than me."

It lets him go and he collapses to the floor with a wheeze. Santana stands over him impassively, pulling the darkness back into the palm of her hand where it settles in a loose curl. "Run back to the jarl if you must, but I do not know where Brittany has gone. She left in the night."

Finngeirr climbs hastily to his feet, nursing the red stripe that has bloomed across his throat. "You will burn for what you are doing," he promises, lumbering away and shouldering out the door without his prize.

Santana gives a tired smirk, dropping down to the bed where she massages her now-pounding temples. "Not if you burn first," she whispers back.

* * *

><p>Mere moments after Brittany had departed her home, she found herself at a loss. Was this task worth bringing down the ire of her father upon her head? In such times of strife, a feud from within is the last thing that they desire.<p>

Yet, if she stays, he will perform the ceremony as quickly as possible. She shudders at the thought; this is the only way.

She makes her quiet way down the hillside, sidestepping snow drifts and fallen branches, flipping her thick hood up over her head to warm her ears. It feels like Finnmork all over again with the mountains grumbling under the weight of the snows. She bites her lip and passes through the town center, keeping her head down enough not to draw any attention to herself. At this time of night the village is nearly deserted; only the drunks come out to play.

Brittany ducks into a copse of trees, formed in a jagged circle akin to a summoning ground now that they have lost their leaves. There is her destination; she sees their forms distantly, shrouded hazily in all the snow.

Her hands touch what she assumes to be a forehead—the grumbling noise snorts for a moment before two burning eyes open from below, casting their eerie light upon her face to wash her in a faint yellow glow. What she had assumed to be ridges of snow turn to be brows as they furrow downwards, heavy set over his eyes.

"What is wrong, warrior?" Stórhríð asks, raising himself to a sitting position. His carapace groans like a passing glacier and the sound is deafening. "Is there trouble?"

"There will be," she sighs, stepping back to allow him to rise. Toppurinn slumbers on, unbothered. "I need your help."

He looks at her silently, and even in the dark she can tell he is dubious. "I wish to go west and rescue Santana's mother."

"Back to Haugesund? Are you mad? There must be dozens of ways to die on such a quest."

Brittany sighs in frustration, running her hands over her head. "I know, I know. But bringing back such a powerful ally would be the best way to convince my father to delay the marriage..."

Stórhríð's eyes narrow, mere glowing slits in the dark. "There is another reason."

"I..." she pauses and lets out a massive breath, shoulders deflating, "I think that Santana would benefit if her mother was around to guide her. I feel the darkness in her head, and it grows with each passing day. Soon enough there will be no ignoring it."

"And what if your absence causes it to grow still?" Stórhríð crosses his massive arms over his chest. "I am your ally, not your friend. Such favours are not given so easily."

Brittany frowns. "I consider you a friend."

He opens his mouth once or twice, unable to summon the words that would cement such a forlorn expression onto her face. "Perhaps we are friendly, but..."

"If you will not do it, I will wake Toppurinn. Surely he wants to go on such an adventure."

Her expression is blank but he sees the ghost of a grin upon her features; she knows she's won. He would never allow his fool brother to walk so blindly into a situation in which his head would get chopped and laid at the stake. Stórhríð sighs in irritation, holding his palm for her to climb upon. "How long are we going to be gone?"

She grins brighter now, clambering on and taking up her familiar position upon his shoulders. "That depends on how fast you can run, jotunn."

She proves to regret that decision as they sneak out of the village, crushing saplings under his feet, until they are a fair distance away and upon the clear, moonlit roads. His frozen muscles bunch underneath her body for a moment before they are positively soaring, his footfalls making great gouges in the snowy earth as they speed along, nary touching the ground. Brittany must hunch over his head in an effort to stay attached; the battering wind rips at her cloak and her eyelids, her braid streaming behind her as the World-Serpent surely writhes under the sea.

The world passes in a blur and the night slowly bleeds into twilight as the sun struggles to push itself over the horizon. She imagines it must be somewhere close to morning, but without a clear glimpse of the sun nor the stars—clouds have shrouded the land, heavy with the promise of snow—she is unable to predict it. Santana still slumbers, she knows that much, and decides that perhaps only a few hours have passed.

"How much farther?" she yells into his ear, yelping as he throws himself off the edge of a ragged cliff only to latch onto the opposite face. The waters of the fjord look an endless pit below.

"We should arrive by next sun," he responds, grunting as he hauls himself over the ledge. "We will stop to rest in the day when the roads are busier... I assume no one knows of your sudden departure."

"You assume right," she mutters back, mind already occupied of the fight that will undoubtedly occur over her sudden disappearance.

They traverse the country, only slowing down from their breakneck speed once or twice to rest. The giant proves himself endless in his endurance, his strange body forever outlasting what Brittany thought capable. (She is realizing there are no boundaries when it comes to magic.) They truly stop only once during the morn to catch a precious few hours of sleep; Brittany is pushed into slumber rather unceremoniously, dreaming of gods and shadows and a woman with eyes black as night.

She awakens with a pounding headache and a heavy, bitter taste in her mouth, but they press on regardless.

Night passes in a strange, sleepless haze, and dawn finds them upon the edges of Haugesund. Stórhríð slows himself then, cautiously crunching through the bracken, his ears alert to every slight sound. In such a state of awareness the forests seem even emptier than usual, absent of sound. Their tracks are massive but quickly covered by the drifting snows that have started to fall, halving their vision and proving to be both a blessing and a curse.

In the darkness comes a single speck of light that soon morphs into two, three, four—a dozen are birthed from nothing and they drop themselves down into the snow, Brittany flying off his shoulders to land in the cold with an ungraceful huff of air. They have crawled themselves nearly to the edge of the enemy camp without realizing it, and in the circle of light are men milling about aimlessly with their weapons sharp on display.

"Why are their pants so tight?" Brittany mutters to her companion, who is at a similar loss.

She scans the men who seem no more threatening than the farmers back at Kaupang—and truly that is what they are, townspeople and farmers come to heed the call of their king. Their attire must be what they had brought from their own homes, for the style is... not different, but odd. The tunic looks similar enough, but Brittany finds herself unable to comprehend the snug fit of their linen trousers that follow the cut of their leg all the way up to the hip.

"Focus," Stórhríð grumbles, elbowing her. They are here for a reason, not to mock the fashion choices of the strange men of the south.

"They must be cold," she whispers, noting their lack of proper winter clothing. They huddle together by the fire and joke amongst themselves, sparing no pity for the miserable few on guard duty upon the outskirts. They are sparsely situated, those watching for intruders, fingers white and jaw chattering in the early winter. "What should we do?"

"Watch them. They must be relieved eventually."

Dawn passes and bleeds into day; they remain stationary for so long that snow begins to cover their forms, the bright colours of Brittany's attire dusted over with white. She counts her blessings that she rarely removes her thick battle shirt, her gambeson, for it insulates and keeps her warm when a simple tunic and leather jerkin would have frozen her to the bone.

In lying there they are only able to catch snippets of conversations, fractions of sentences and statements, but it seems that this force is not a singular entity. There are multiple languages in use that are interchangeable, it seems, for she catches hints of both French and Latin mingling with the Norse that her northern brothers have not yet forgotten, creating a strange and confusing medley that sometimes prevents the soldiers from understanding one another. Latin seems only to be used with the priests who touch their crosses to the brows of the men and mutter strange incantations under their breath. They reside deeper in the camp, obscured from their observation.

"There are too many of them to try and sneak in," Brittany realizes, eyeing the formation and the number of them tightly packed for warmth and protection. A soldier upon the outskirts greets another further in; they pass what looks to be a piece of folded bark between them until the one guarding the inner reaches of the encampment unrolls it, scanning it briefly before nodding and allowing him to pass through.

"That is a scroll," Stórhríð answers her unspoken question, "it contains orders from higher ranks to be passed down. They place a seal over the top to ensure no one has looked at it before them."

Brittany frowns. "How can such things be placed onto little tiny fragments of material? It would tear."

"They stain the parchment with a special dye, and form it to make letters, much like the runes we use to inscribe onto wood or stone."

She shakes her head—these people keep getting stranger. Though it _would_ make sense... the traders that come into port are sometimes seen with little bound books, scribbling away with what they have bought and sold. "Where do you think the priestess is being held?" she asks instead. It would do no good to wander about aimlessly until she is discovered.

Stórhríð hums thoughtfully. "In the center of their encampment? It would be the most heavily fortified and the easiest to see. It seems to be where all the priests are heading."

She wishes she could see through the eyes of animals much as Santana does. "I need to get there... but how?"

As she asks the men change stations—the cold and frozen guards wander out into the forests to relieve themselves before heading into camp for a much-needed spell around the fire, while others take their place, much like what had happened when they had arrived. Brittany chews on her lip anxiously, eyeing the weapons at their belts.

"Deception..." she murmurs thoughtfully, only daring to breathe again once the men return to the encampment. Stórhríð looks to her curiously. "I could take their clothes and walk into their camp. A lot of them come from Harald's home in the north... I would blend in."

"You could simply march in and take the priestess right out from under their noses," Stórhríð agrees, but soon frowns. "I assume she is guarded. You would need a way to infiltrate her holding."

Brittany eyes the scroll, seal broken, strapped at the man's hip. "I have an idea, but we have to wait for nightfall. The guard needs to change again."

* * *

><p>Edward hates this place.<p>

He hates the cold and the wind and the damp, hates the people who speak with their guttural tongues and laugh when he asks for a cloak. He hates their food that he must eat, the fish as hard as a wooden board and the pickled vegetables that are difficult to swallow. He hates that he has marched up into this godless land for a leader that has barely shown himself to be more than the lawless savages that were his ancestors.

More than anything, he hates guard duty.

Staring out into an endless void of white, covered in snow and ice, waiting for an enemy that is undoubtedly smart enough to stay their ground with their abundant food supplies and wait them out. He has heard whisperings that the chieftan's boy, William, has gone mad in the night, bringing with his dreams tidings of doom and battle, begging his uncle to attack the heathens before they amass their forces and slaughter them in their sleep. He claims the Virgin Mary came to him, and the High Priestess drove her away.

Ah yes, the High Priestess...

Despite being around for months the priests still attempt to convert her to the ways of God, chanting and swearing and blessing her; she seems bored by the whole thing, fed up with the predictable routine. She seems dwarfed in Harald's cloak as she curls under it to escape both their wind and nature's wind alike, nary the top of her head poking out from underneath the fur. While he doesn't agree with her blasphemy, Edward understands the need for escape. He would too, trapped in a cage every day without any means of halting the unrelenting boredom.

They'd built a wind-break around her, open on three sides, so that she wouldn't freeze during the night. A guard stands in front of it at all times to ensure she remains put, though honestly, where would she go? Edward is of the firm belief that her heathen magic could blast all of them halfway back to West Francia, but yet she restrains herself... why?

He has little time to dwell—the man he thinks he relieved comes back from the forests, awkwardly adjusting his tights as he walks. He notes the slight limp in his right hip and the way his clothes are just a tiny bit too short, riding up the sleeves and exposing the man's narrow collarbone. From under his simple, woollen cap he can see the vaguest peek of blond hair escaping from its confines. He has a lot of it—must be a Norman.

"Are you well?" he calls out, frowning at the way the soldier freezes momentarily before turning to him. Now closer, he looks more a boy than anything... a smooth, hairless chin and delicate cheekbones greet him as the boy's lips pull up into a hesitant smile. "Ja?" he responds, his tone more like a question in itself.

_He still hasn't learned French,_ Edward realizes, taking pity on him and moving him along with a wave of his hand. How irritating it must be to only understand what part of the army is saying.

Once he turns his back, he's unaware of the massive breath let out, nor the shaking hand Brittany presses to her brow.

_I have to be more careful,_ she thinks to herself, making her cautious way through the camp. Though it feels like a million eyes are all on her in reality none give her a second glance, blending in with the dull colours of the camp. She sends a thank-you to the man whose life she had taken for these garments, his breath failing him in the snows of a foreign land as her arms wrapped around his neck and took his thoughts away. She knows he probably didn't understand the mantra of _I'm sorry_ whispered into his ear, but she tried regardless.

Brittany sits herself on a distant bench, elbows on her knees, subtly taking in the commotion of the camp. At this time of night the men are getting ready for bed in their shelters with only a skeleton crew manning the grounds; near the most magnificent of the shelters she sees what looks to be a wooden structure, manned by a scowling guard. Through her connection with Santana she can feel the pulse of energy coming from within the flimsy wooden walls. In it, she knows Maria sits.

But how to enter? It's doubtful that angry looking man will let anyone in. She scratches at her scalp in frustration, the itchy wool making it impossible to focus, yet if she takes it off her hair will betray her. Upon righting herself she catches glimpses of another man inside one of the shelters hunched over what appears to be a wooden table, cradling some sort of deep spoon in his hand as it hovers over the single candle in the space. Entranced, she watches as he pours whatever was inside it onto the parchment, a blooming, scarlet red, before stamping it with a sort of handle. It makes the seal she saw earlier upon the folds of the page. She has to get inside the shelter, but how? He seems busy with his tasks.

Instead of searching for an alternate means she waits instead, drilling holes into the side of his temple in a vain effort to make him lose his train of thought. She shakes in her borrowed clothing, unprepared for the nightly chill that such thin fabric has a hard time warding away.

A figure seats themselves beside her and she stiffens noticeably, clenching her jaw shut to stop herself from shaking. A moment later a bowl of what smells to be soup is placed in her trembling hands, the heat from it leaking through the wooden husk. She glances up with a frown as another boy smiles at her; he can't be more than twenty summers old either.

_"Vous regardiez froid,"_ he explains patiently, motioning to the soup in her hands. Brittany hesitates for a moment before bringing it to her lips—it scalds her tongue but the warmth is a welcome friend, settling in her belly and flushing through her limbs. She gulps the broth so quickly she almost chokes, reaching by instinct for her waterskin before realizing its absence. Her whole body aches for her axe.

Once finished does she lick at her splashed fingers, setting the bowl upon her knee and offering a smile to the boy. "Thank you," she says, careful to make her voice lower than it wishes to be. He starts in surprise for a moment before returning her gesture.

"Oh, you are a Norman?" he asks rhetorically, his voice high and delicate. "My apologies, I had not noticed. How silly of me to assume that all the people here speak French."

Brittany licks her lips, at a loss for what to say, but luckily the boy fills it in for her. "You are a soldier, yes? Of course you are with the weapons on your belt, what else would you be? Certainly more than a simple stable-hand like me... though everybody has their place. Those fine horses need to be in perfect shape to ride in such horrendous conditions." The boy pauses then, shaking his head at himself. "Oh, where are my manners? I am Konrad, though many people simply call me Kurt. They find it fits better."

She scans his lithe frame. "A strange name for a Frenchman."

He laughs, a strangely melodious sound. "Yes... my father wished to stay close to his East Frankish roots. I've been often told that I do not belong in West Francia."

At his stare, she realizes that she is supposed to introduce herself. "I am, um, I am... Samuel. Samuel of Normandy."

Kurt furrows his brow slightly. "A strange name for a northman," he teases back, but she can only summon a faint smile.

"I was named after a great man we all much respected, but the heathens got to him. He was not given the honor of a proper burial."

She bites her lip—it has been a long time since she thought of her friend, so caught up in the strife of Nor Veg. It only reinforces that this is what she has to do, if only to ensure his sacrifice was not in vain. (Will it make up for the people he slaughtered in his second life? She is unsure, but hopes so.)

The moon rises high into the sky and illuminates the sympathetic angles of Kurt's face—she thinks the women of the village would like him with his fancy words and kind demeanour. A welcome change from the constant parade of broad-shouldered brutes that parade across their doorsteps in an effort to receive their attention. As the wind howls he shivers and yawns, hunching further in on himself. She can't imagine he has much padding on his flesh to begin with.

"You should sleep," she says wisely, glancing up at the hidden mountains, "gives you the chance to catch a few hours of sun tomorrow noon. It makes a difference."

He nods, rubbing at his eye. "You should do the same, soldier. You look tired."

How long has she slept? No more than snatches here and there, but she has a job to do. "I will stay up a while longer, I think," she denies, eyeing the man in his tent who has lain down in his bedroll for the night, "sleep does not come easily to me."

Kurt frowns, patting her shoulder hesitantly. "Nightmares? I know a lot of the men who were part of the recent raids have them."

Brittany looks at him then, brow furrowed. "Raids?"

"You haven't heard?" Kurt asks, surprised, "they raided the nearby fishing towns, you could see the smoke pillars for days. Took what they wanted; food, clothing, drink..." he grimaces in distaste, "women. This will be how we manage to survive through the winter, so long as the commander does not heed the insane ramblings of his crazed nephew." He stands, stretching and somehow unseeing of her thunderous expression. "I retire for the eve. Good night to you, Samuel of Normandy."

"And to you, Kurt," she mumbles as an afterthought, hunching down again to protect herself from the cold, soup long forgotten. Does the king know of the attacks on his people? They might have been around when it occured, they could have ridden in and helped them...

_I would watch my kingdom burn before surrendering to you._

And so he has.

Shaking the turbulent thoughts from her head, Brittany glances once again into the shelter of the scroll-man. His back is turned, expanding with his deep even breaths—upon the table lay his craft, unmonitored. A single candle flame burns bright through the night. She chews on her lip for a moment before rising to her feet, nonchalantly wandering over to his entryway before silently slipping inside.

She holds her breath for a moment before sitting down gingerly upon the single chair of the room. It looks simple enough. Rolls of empty parchment lay open but it is the only thing available; carefully does she roll it into a tube, picking up his little spoon, still laden with the red liquid, and attempts to tip it onto the parchment. Nothing happens. She frowns and pokes at the sticky substance, almost smacking it against the table before remembering where she is. The man snores suddenly and she nearly leaps out of her skin, holding her breath to the point of bursting until it passes and she is able to carry on with her work.

Thinking back, she holds the spoon over the candle flame, waiting for the hard red substance to smooth out into a liquid. In fascination she tips it out onto the scroll, pouring way too much before she remembers to stop, staring at it almost too long before she stamps it with his strange handle. It creates an imprint that holds the parchment and its false messages together. With as much care as she entered she slinks back out of the tent, nobody the wiser and her an empty scroll richer. She tucks it into her pocket and huffs out a breath, stilling the thunderous beating of her heart.

Now that night has truly fallen it is difficult to see far in the encampment, most of the scattered torches dull against the storm. Brittany approaches the wooden holding structure cautiously, her hand skating nervously against the small _seax_ at her belt. The angry looking man eyes her disdainfully, gnawing on a solid chunk of bread.

_"Quoi?"_ he snaps impatiently and she fumbles with her scroll, eventually holding it out to him.

"The chieftain wants to see the priestess," she says with as much bravado as she can muster—he looks her up and down a minute before sighing in irritation, ignoring her outstretched hand entirely.

_"Luca,"_ he calls, _"vient ici! On a un autre qui ne peut pas parler notre langue!"_

A nearby guard comes towards them—Luca?—and shares a muttered word with the first. Brittany is acutely aware they're talking of her but finds herself unable to rebuke, frozen as he is. The original guard slaps him on the shoulder and heads off towards what she believes are the food stocks in an effort to bring warmth back into his frozen bones.

"Wha' you got there, boy?" His Norse is rough at best, too melodic around the edges for him to be considered a native speaker, but manageable.

Brittany advances further into the shadow of the hold, driving him back and away from common view. "A command for the priestess," she says, handing it off and letting her hand float to her borrowed blade.

"A command? Couldn't he o' just gotten her himself?" The man unrolls the parchment, frowning as he scans the blank page. "Hey, now what—"

Taking advantage of his distraction she pushes him back further, pulling the seax from her belt and sliding it under his sternum and through his chest cavity. It slips through the flesh with very little resistance and squelches when she pulls it away, her hands and his shirt stained red with blood. "I wish you could live," she says sadly, guiding him to the ground, "but I need her more than you do." The man stares up at her as he leans against one of the walls, his hand limply cradling the growing pool that dyes his shirt a deep, deep red. She glances back—no one is the wiser.

"Priestess," she whispers urgently, stepping up to the bars of the obscured cage, "priestess, are you awake? We have to go."

A shuffling movement comes from the shadows and then a face appears; Brittany has to catch her breath for how similar she looks to her daughter, the same eyes and the same frown and the same mouth. It's uncanny.

Her dark eyes ghost over the gasping man who is soon to depart this world, travelling over the bloody weapon clutched in the light stranger's hand. "Who are you?" she asks suspiciously, studying her face. It looks ever so familiar...

Brittany grunts in frustration, tugging a little on the lock that keeps her trapped. "Please, there is little time. I come to bring you back to Santana. She lives with me in my village."

Maria sucks in a breath. "You know my daughter?" Upon further inspection, those blue eyes seem awfully familiar to another person she saw—a girl with hair of gold and skin of snow that whispered soothing words and held Santana back from her own bad choices. "You... you were the one at the meeting that day. The chieftain's girl, Bretagne."

Brittany looks around again, reaching back to hook her foot around the dying man's neck and pull him further into the shadows rather than out in the open where he wishes to slump. The grass is beginning to wet with his essence and the blood upon her hands is drying, sticky and cloying. She holds her breath as a man passes by the cage but doesn't bother to look in.

"Priestess," she hisses lowly, "I understand your concern, but we do not have much time. The other one will return soon enough."

Maria nods in agreement and worms her hands through the bars of her cage to surround the metal lock- after a few moments of nothing there is a pulse of blue light and it comes away in her hands with a dull _click_, useless and broken. She drops it to the floor and smirks at Brittany's gaping stare.

"Why didn't you do that in the first place?" she asks incredulously, grabbing her by the arm as if to steer her in one direction. She hides her bloody fingers in the rough material of her robes.

"And then what, kill an entire encampment? Yes, that would work perfectly." Brittany sighs; truly her mother's daughter.

Together they march through the camp, the warrior's grip crushing on her bicep. Some of the soldiers give them curious glances as they pass but Brittany keeps her chin raised defiantly and they look away, finding nothing amiss. If the high priestess notes the trembling of her fingers she says nary a word, focusing on keeping up with her hasty steps lest she trip and stumble. It is only when they reach the edges of the encampment do they draw much attention; the first guard she passes looks at them strangely when they make to go into the forest.

He says something in his own tongue and Brittany soundlessly opens her mouth for a few beats, eventually pointing at Maria then at the woods. "She needs to relieve herself," she says in Norse, but the man doesn't understand, and she sees his hand travel subtly to his weapon. She mimes grabbing at her trousers and squatting with them pulled to her knees—his disgusted glance makes her grin and he waves them along, taking his position back up at his post.

Maria waits until they're almost in the cover of the trees to tease her. "My daughter has found herself a proper young woman to befriend," she snickers in amusement when Brittany shakes her head.

"It's Santana, would she have it any other way?" Brittany responds, ducking under a low-lying branch and coming to a stop far too close to the encampment. Maria makes to protest but halts as she sees movement in the distance... large movement.

"Stórhríð?" Brittany hisses nervously, drawing Maria slightly behind herself. "Is that you?"

"Fear not, warrior," rumbles the answer, the giant stepping into the dull light and offering his hand to them. "I am here." His gleaming eyes shift to the smaller woman and he bows his head slightly in acknowledgement. "High Priestess," he says respectfully, "it is an honor to meet one of such power. The winds whisper of your coming."

"Not too loudly, one would hope," she recovers smoothly, clambering onto the tops of his shoulders and hanging tight to his hair. After seeing Brittany's frown she shuffles herself over so her stomach is pressing against the hard curl of his ear, beckoning her to do the same. They straddle him in a crosswise position, facing each other as he rises to his feet again.

"It is a blessing you northerners are not the shy type," Maria exclaims with a smile, close enough to see the rough constellations in her companion's eyes. Brittany grins in return, leaning closer as Stórhríð shuffles slowly away from the camp. "Santana was surprised when she first came here," she divulges with a smirk, "yelled at me if I took off my tunic when she was looking."

"Of course you were witness to her sharp tongue," Maria agrees with a fond smile. "Has she gotten over it?"

(Brittany remembers Santana a few nights ago, perched atop her bare torso, running her hands greedily up her legs and over her breasts where she gave a teasing kiss to the valley between them before licking a path upwards to her mouth.)

"You could say that."

A horn sounds in the distance and Stórhríð turns his head to the sound, grimacing and beginning a light jog. Dogs begin to bark with a never ending bay as the men struggle to orient themselves in the panic. In this new position they are bounced along and Brittany's borrowed trousers are no match for the stinging cold, but she dare not complain lest they stop for too long and become trapped. Maria startles as he takes his first leap of many over a fallen log, their bodies rising high in the air before landing with a thump.

"Once we cross the first few rivers they will lose our scent," Brittany says reassuringly, her grip much looser upon the giant's mane. "Santana and I have done these trips many times. The jotnar are our horses, are they not?" She attempts to pat his nose much in the same way she would a mare but he flicks her hand with such a force that he nearly breaks her fingers; she yelps in indignation and sucks them into her mouth with only slightly feigned hurt.

"Be glad that was not my brother, he would have ripped your hand away," Stórhríð rumbles in mock anger, "he is not the smartest jotunn that ever lived. He took his wits after our father."

"It was always the fire jotnar who took away the prize for intelligence," Brittany agrees, but notes the cutting glare given to her from below and strokes his forehead in apology. "I mean no offence, Stórhríð. It is simply what the sagas say."

"Your sagas choose what they wish to remember," he mutters angrily but continues on regardless; Brittany looks at Maria and mouths _he's grumpy_ to her with a secret smile playing on her lips. The two share a smirk in silence and prepare for the long journey home.

Along the way she learns all of Iberia—of Botaya and Jaca and the snakes that hide in both, of their fate after the armies had swept through the lands. Harald's armies were merely support for the people who called themselves the Goths and who sought to reclaim their lands from the Moorish people who had so shattered their kingdom. They claim it is not a religious war though they carry the banners of the White Christ and kill with his name on their lips. Brittany wonders if the alliances here would have turned better or worse if Harald attempted to shroud his true goal from the people of the north.

Last Maria knew, they had claimed the northernmost reaches of the desert as their own, slowly but surely pushing back at the invaders. Though they claimed only to want their land returned she was aware of the sneers and the taunts that the Goths bestowed upon her; not so much for her religion, but rather for her skin. Brittany had always wondered what blood ran through Santana's veins but her mother never told, and still refused even now. Regardless, she chose to run, and was glad she did.

A thought occurs to the warrior. "If they view you as the enemy, why does Santana have a christian name?"

"Her father asked only one thing of me, and it was to name the child something of his choosing. I agreed." (Perhaps she should have gone into that question with a bit more subtlety.)

"But it matters no longer. The Goddess gifted her to me," she proclaims, stroking at the white pendant hanging around her neck, "just as She led you to her." Perhaps fate is a more fickle being than that, but Brittany can't help but agree.

They wade through fjords and scale the craggy cliffs until they are numb to the bone, their skin frozen where it touches the giant. Stórhríð lets them down and promptly burrows himself in the snows to sleep, leaving them alone.

"I suppose we should rest," Brittany sighs, eyeing the large lump of the giant that steadfastly ignores their conversation, "despite the fact we are only half a day-walk from Kaupang."

Maria shrugs, already crouched down to sweep off a section of snow to create a fire. "Let him rest, we have been running for many miles." She gathers a pile of broken twigs from nearby and shakes the cold from them, grasping at her belt for a moment before looking up at Brittany. "Do you have a fire-strike?"

Brittany unhooks it from her belt with a frown. "Can you not.." she mimes shooting flame from her fingers, accompanied by a _whoosh_ for greater effect.

The High Priestess raises her brow slightly. "I can, but it burns my fingers. I'd like to keep them intact."

"Oh," Brittany clears her throat, ears pinking at the tips, "of course. Silly me."

After a few unsuccessful strikes a tiny flicker comes to life, and Maria nurses it into a cheery, orange glow. It almost takes Brittany by surprise, so used to the white light, and she crouches gratefully by the flame. It warms her face and dries her trembling hands, pricking her thighs through her thin leggings. She grumbles and wanders over to the great lump of giant beside them and digs through the snow until she reaches his belt, yanking her original clothes from the cloth sack. She makes to leave but rolls her eyes and re-covers the hole left behind after a particularly irate grumble comes from underneath.

"Grumpy giants," she mutters, hunting for a few sticks which she drives on either side of the fire-pit until she is able to lay her frozen clothes across the flame. Soon enough she'll feel like herself again rather than this imposter walking in a dead man's skin.

The two silently share what meagre food they have between themselves; cloudberries mixed with reindeer fat wrapped in lichen brought by traders from Island. The Sami were generous with sharing their stores with them before she left, and she made sure to save them for a time where it was necessary. It is not a particularly flavoursome or filling meal, but with the forests as quiet as they are there is no hope of hunting fresh game.

"So," Maria starts, her tone of a suspicious mother, "does Santana use the _whoosh_ fire?"

Brittany wilts slightly under her stare and rubs anxiously at the back of her neck, skating her eyes anywhere but the dark ones drilling into her temple. "You saw her at the negotiations," she hedges, "you know she does."

But Maria is smart, having spent seventeen years raising the very same person Brittany is beginning to learn from. "But how often?"

"... often?"

Maria sighs. "You do not have to protect her from her own mother, Bretagne. I only want to know what I have missed in the moons we have been apart."

The warrior scratches sheepishly behind her ear. "She uses it a lot because the blue magic doesn't come so easy anymore. Says it won't talk to her. Can magic talk?"

"In a sense, yes, much like the gods can talk. If you fall out of favour with them, they stop speaking to you, no? Then you must find your own way back."

Brittany's eyes widen, leaning forward until the flames flicker dangerously close to her chin. "Does the Goddess not like Santana anymore? Why? Was it something we did?"

The High Priestess tilts her head slightly. "Why would it be something you did?"

(Santana gasping beneath her, cradling Brittany's head against her breast as her teeth nip at the sensitive flesh. Her cries are Brittany's prayers in the night. She aches to rejoice in the sound.)

"Nothing," she whispers hoarsely, trying to rub the redness from her cheeks. "I was just wondering."

She doesn't look convinced, but the subjects drops as Stórhríð groans, his massive body stretching until his foot and the tips of his fingers poke from the snow, collapsing in a huff again before rising like a sea dragon. He looks around blearily, taking in the sun that has now hauled itself laboriously over the mountains, before rubbing at his glowing eyes with the palm of his hands. "Have you done your bonding now?" he rumbles, wordlessly accepting the remainder of their meals. "I would like to make it to Kaupang without the two of you jabbering away."

"You sound like your brother, Stórhríð," Brittany teases, stripping away her stolen clothing and beginning to worm herself into her fire-warmed underclothes. The embrace is toasty and fills her with a warm contentment, even as she pulls her linen under-tunic over her head and catches Maria's calculating stare.

At her wordless question, the older woman smirks. "I see what my daughter likes in you," she says cryptically, clambering onto the giant's back before Brittany can respond. The warrior hastens to redress and bounds into her adjusted position with a helping hand, wincing only once at the tweak in her hip. Once the fire is covered they are moving once again, running with the streams that curl eastwards to their home.

As time passes she sees Maria become more and more anxious, worrying at her bottom lip incessantly. Brittany smiles and places a hand over her own to catch her attention.

"She misses you terribly," she says quietly, "do not worry so."

The High Priestess offers a shaky nod in acknowledgement, and all too soon they are cresting the cliffs that lie alongside Kaupang. Brittany's heart pounds nervously as she imagines facing her father once again, but all that doubt is erased when she glances at Maria and the inevitable joining with her daughter.

_I return to you,_ she whispers to Santana, smiling as she feels the excitement run through their bond. _And I have brought you a gift. _

_A gift?_ comes the priestess, pleasantly surprised. _You spoil me, my warrior. What is it?_

Stórhríð's feet touch down upon the dirt roads of the outskirts, travelling swiftly until he reaches the marketplace. Brittany feels her as she always does, and she instinctively turns her head to look. _Come and find me to see._

A flash of dark furs—Santana has already found them, and Brittany remains mounted upon Stórhríð as she takes in her priestess gleaming in the sun, a vibrant smile upon her face as their eyes lock. It is the happiest she has seen her in what seems like forever, and while it brings her a certain form of sadness, she knows it will not last. Not with the way Santana's name is called not from her lips, and not with the way dark eyes float down to the marketplace before going blank with shock.

Maria's lips lift up into a trembling grin and she raises her arms to her lost daughter—Santana takes a hesitant step forward, once, twice, mouthing things nobody can hear before flinging herself at her mother, desperately wrapping her arms around her neck and burying her face into the crook of her shoulder. Her body shakes with sobs as Maria gently strokes the back of her head, whispering comforting words as she rocks them slowly in the marketplace. Brittany quietly slides down Stórhríð's body; once upon the ground, she can hear the feverish and repeated mantra of _mami mami te amo_ mumbled into the older woman's neck. A blue presence curls itself around them both and brings with it the delicate scent of wildflowers and new-fallen snow.

She lets them have them moment, smiling up at Stórhríð who watches them both with a fond expression. Despite his protests, they have been turned into unlikely friends. Brittany hugs his leg and his massive hand pats her back. "Thank you, my friend," she mumbles into his knee and he pets her hair once before departing to find his brother.

Now alone, Brittany waits patiently for the two to disengage, feeling another presence by her side. She passes her hand through Sandalio's fur and he wags up at her, obviously questioning the stranger that has made a sudden appearance in the town. But his mistress is happy and that is all that matters—if this stranger makes her happy, then he will love her as they do.

Eventually, and with much snuffling, Santana draws away from her mother, eyes red and cheeks wet. She wipes at her eyes and smiles when Maria takes her face into her hands and looks at her closely, testing for the sharpness of her jaw and the brightness of her eyes. Whatever sickness plagues her must have retreated, for she kisses her forehead and whispers something into her ear. Santana's face does that _thing_ that Brittany loves so much; looking surprised for a moment before it crumples into a warmth that can nary be described. When she turns and that expression is dedicated to her, Brittany almost crumples herself.

Santana walks up to her slowly, smoothing her hands across her shoulders before playing with the fine hairs at the back of Brittany's neck. "You did this for me?" she whispers in disbelief, her eyes roaming over her features like it is too good to be true. Brittany smiles and draws her in by the waist, oblivious to those who watch with an interested eye.

"I would do everything and anything for you," she responds truthfully, only able to enjoy the indescribable expression of love on Santana's features for a moment before she is gently pulled forward and their lips touch for what feels like the first time.

The world falls away and Brittany moves her mouth as if in a dream—are they not hiding anymore? Can they finally be as one? Santana fists the back of her tunic and pulls her closer in a futile attempt to fuse them together; Brittany follows as she always does (as she always will) until her existence has been reduced to light and life and love.

She barely catches Maria's smile from over Santana's shoulder, but when she does, it feels like coming home.

* * *

><p><em>Vous regardiez froid: <em>You looked cold

_Luca, vient ici! On a un autre qui ne peut pas parler notre langue:_ Luca, come here! We have another who can't speak our language!


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N: **Two chapters until the Thing. My mean beta **(LeMasquerade) **and I know you will enjoy the Thing.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 22<strong>

**howling ghosts they reappear**

**in mountains that are stacked with fear**

**November 17****th****, 912**

"Are you _insane_, child?"

The roar rings out through the space, and Brittany barely flinches as a metal cup goes sailing past her ear and crashes into the wall behind her, bouncing harmlessly off the wooden posts and rolling to her foot. She picks it up and sets it back down upon a nearby table, jaw set into a stubborn line.

"No, I am in love. There is a difference."

Betar growls in frustration and runs his hands through his long hair, pacing back and forth so anxiously Brittany fears he will wear through his boots. She's never seen him like this, not even with all the activity of the recent months—turning around and around like a trapped animal, his face ruddy with the force of his yelling, sometimes banging the heels of his hands against his temples.

"You are not in love, Bretagne. This is a... a childish infatuation that will fade in time. Do you know what you have done, causing such a scene in the village center?"

Brittany scowls. "You have no right to call my feelings anything after betrothing me to the worst excuse of a man to live in the village."

Betar wheels on her, slamming his hands so hard upon the table that the mugs clatter and she jumps in alarm. "Gods damn it, Bretagne, _forget_ about him for a moment! All my life I have broken rules for you. Women are not allowed to wear men's clothing, and yet you do so, day after day, because _I_ fought tooth and nail to make it so when you realized that is what you wanted." He leans closer, furious. "Women are not allowed to carry weapons, and yet you own that spear and axe because _I _am the one that humiliated myself at the _þing _when I brought you here so that you could become the warrior you wanted to be. We could have been exiled so many times and only narrowly escaped because they, too, saw what you could become. And this is how you repay me? By sealing the fate I sought to spare you from so many years ago?"

Despite the slight pang of guilt in her chest, Brittany refuses to back down. "There are no rules for this and you _know_ it. No matter how much you would wish it, I am no man, and nor is Santana. Together we are something that no one here has seen or understands. It is not dishonorable if we are committing no crime."

"_Ergi_ is not a crime, but it is not something that should be done! Your reputation is perilous as it is, hanging on the thread of the villager's whims!"

"I am not bound by your honor!" Brittany yells back, cheeks pinking. "I am a warrior but not a man! Who says I have to conduct myself as one?" She scoffs angrily, brushing her bangs from her eyes. "One could even say that I am doing myself a favor, picking such a unique, powerful girl as my mate."

Betar drops heavily into his chair and runs his palms over his face. "If you were married and she were a concubine or a thrall... maybe, then _maybe_ it would work. But as it is, you refusing Finngeirr for her hand? It will not stand. Not here, not in other places."

"They will not exile me for this," Brittany states confidently, though he can hear the slight waver behind her tone. "I have brought too much good upon Kaupang recently, and so has Santana. Perhaps they will be confused at first, but they will understand."

"Until the next _þing_, we will not know," Betar says wearily, "but they do not like deviation. _I _do not like deviation. The family of Finngeirr most certainly do not like deviation. You have thrown your position into uncertainty in the midst of a budding war, and you are at the mercy of those who the gods see fit."

Brittany studies him carefully; the drawn hunch of his shoulders, the exhausted set of his eyes. "Is this because she is a woman," she asks cautiously, "or because she is Santana?"

Betar sighs deeply and fixes his tired stare upon her. "I always knew you were different, and if you would just do what you are _told_," he stops himself before he begins to grow agitated again, taking a deep gulping breath before continuing onwards. "If you did what was best and married him, I might eventually grow to accept, as the village would, your... tastes." (Though he desperately tries to keep the images out of his head, they curl in regardless, like an invasive serpent that slithers through his thoughts.) "There can be no illegitimate child born of this bonding, and neither of you are truly performing an act of cowardice or complacency, but..." He shakes his head almost desperately. "Why did it have to be her, Bretagne? Of all people, why her?"

"It was her all along," she replies simply. "It could never be anybody else."

"But... a _seiðr-witch_? You know how they trick the mind, convince others of things that are not true."

She does, remembers the women that come sometimes and sit on their high perch in the loft of homes and cast their minds outside of their own body to take possession of others and their thoughts, who mutter and whisper their chants under blankets as they seek dominion over things that should only be touched by the gods. But Santana is none of those things—there exists magic outside of what they are able to know, things that are not entirely what they seem. "The magic that she uses is not _seiðr _or _spae_, father. It is something else that comes from her own lands."

He looks at her doubtfully. "There is a darkness within her that can only come from _seiðr_, child."

Brittany has no way of explaining that it is something _else_, so instead she shrugs slightly and plays with the end of her braid. "The darkness will come and I will be by her side to fight it. Together we will overcome it, but not if you seperate us." She bites her lip hesitantly. "Give us until the war is won. Once Nor Veg is safe again, I will marry him without a fight. But not until then."

(Little does he know of her plans, of boats and broken promises and a long, winding road.)

He fixes her with a heavy stare. "I have your word?"

Words are everything here, and it is with a heavy heart that she replies, "You do."

* * *

><p>How strange it is that one kingdom can vary so drastically from another.<p>

Maria never ceases to marvel in the smiles she receives as she walks through the town, the people here asking for her blessing without words. They have placed trust in her daughter and subsequently in her, the woman who raised her to use the power that brought them what they believe are miracles. But there is something that is out of place...

The villagers all say that Santana visited a woman who had suffered a grievous wound, nursed her back from the brink of death's embrace, bound her injury and applied foul-smelling paste to speed the recovery. It saved her life but not her musculature, and the muscle withered away like a dying herb. Yet... they speak of a night that Santana had lain hands upon her and fixed her complete, weaving flesh where there was nothing and making whole what was broken. Though the keeper of life and death alike, Ataecina does not allow such things to bloom under her jurisdiction lest it upset the balance and those that were to die come back to the living without her blessing. Maria, determined to reach the root of this rumour, weaves through the longhouse effortlessly as she searches.

The thralls bow as she passes, and she realizes that her younger self would have never thought this possible, a poor man's daughter living by the sea. Her parents were well-meaning but she never accepted Christ the way they had, nor did she believe in his book. His ways were honorable, but the way his followers warped his teachings was something her mind failed to grasp. Sometimes she wonders if they live still; they were young when she was born.

She ducks through the threshold and spies a group of women chatting amicably, chopping vegetables or weaving looms or carving items; some bounce children upon their knees and others occupy themselves with stoking the fire to take away the chill of the winter. They all look at once when one spots her, and though the talking dies, it is not a stony silence.

"Greetings," Maria smiles, "I look for the one named Gynna. Is she here?"

"I am," calls a soft voice from her right; the priestess turns her head and studies the blonde woman thoroughly, as if almost searching to see through her. The collar around her neck is loose and not yet well-worn. She does not hunch nor limp.

"I am Maria, High Priestess of Ataecina," she bows her head in greeting, "may I have a word with you?"

She is studied for a moment before receiving a nod. "Santana's mother, yes? Of course." The two of them exit the women's weaving room and take shelter in the sparsely populated mead hall, huddling by the flickering orange flame for warmth. In this light the woman looks so terribly young with a smile beyond her years. "What is it you wish to know, High Priestess?"

"I heard you were visited by my daughter," Maria enquires curiously, leaning one elbow on the table. "Is this true?"

Gynna's lips quirk into a small smile. "Yes, it is. I would not be here were it not for her."

"What did she do?"

"She bound my wounds and kept them from festering," Gynna recalls. "Visited me every morn to ensure everything was as proper as she could get it. I understood nothing of what she said—her Norse was primitive at best back then—but knew she only wanted to help. I was in so much pain for the first moon or so, I welcomed anything that could ease it."

Maria taps her nails upon the wooden table in thought. "And this method healed you completely?"

"Sadly, no," Gynna sighed. "The spear took a great portion of my back with it. It was difficult to move my arm, let alone attempt to use it. She felt guilty that she was not able to do more."

At the frown upon the face of the High Priestess, she chuckles. "I know what you are thinking... how am I able to move it, then? Truthfully, I do not know what to tell you. Santana came in one eve looking deathly pale and asked me if I trusted her. When I said yes, she told me to close my eyes and never open them until she said so. So I did."

"And..." Maria hesitates, biting her lip, "what happened?"

Gynna pauses, brow knitting into a frown as she attempts to draw words to the experience. "I... I am still unsure. She said strange things to herself, almost like muttering, and then there was something cold at my back. It spread and spread and the air turned to ice until I could see my breath, and she was moaning and grinding her teeth but kept telling me not to turn around, so I stayed where I was."

Something about this sounds so achingly familiar that Maria feels the beginnings of dread creep upon her. "Did it hurt?"

"It was more... uncomfortable, I suppose? A great pressure wrapped itself around my chest and I could feel my flesh moving, knitting itself back together. She sounded like she was in extreme pain, thrashing about and yelling at something I was unable to see. There was another presence in the room, though," she says seriously, "I am sure of it. A being or a god or something else entirely, but it was there. She brought a scroll in with her, but when I looked at it, the parchment was blank."

That feeling settles deeper within her, anchoring inside her throat. "May I... may I see your scar?"

At Gynna's nod, she carefully shifts aside the thin cloak she wears, hooking her fingers under her dress collar and peering down the back. In the dim gloom the neat black line is still visible, running crossways over her shoulder-blade and flexing when she breathes.

Sometimes, Maria sincerely hates being right.

Swallowing thickly, she nods and pats her dress back down, thanking her quietly as she gathers her things. Gynna watches her expression worriedly, laying a gentle hand across her forearm before she can depart.

"Are you well?" she asks in concern, clasping her hand in both her own.

No, she feels sick, but instead shakes it off with a slight smile. "I simply have to tie up a few loose ends," she reassures the woman, passing her hand discretely over her mark. But as she turns to leave, she stops, as if remembering something. "Gynna, have you... ever since that night, have you experienced any nightmares or aggression?"

Gynna frowns. "No, nothing like that. What is this about?"

"I..." she sighs, "I think Santana has made a mistake. Thank you for your time." Before she can be questioned further she sweeps out of the room, drawing her oversized bearskin cloak tighter to herself against the sudden chill. She should have paid more attention... Brittany's ramblings, the manifestation of her own white power, the darkness that hangs across this land. She has yet to meet the one called Styrr and the shadows he brings, but she has a suspicion that he was the beginning of this mess (but he will not be the end, oh, not anymore—this rises above him now). It is said that he is always watching with his endless eyes that can see in the dark.

Maria glances nervously at the two massive ravens that have taken up permanent perch in Kaupang, blinking beadily and watching her with an unnervingly calm gaze. They have taken a liking to Brittany, swooping down and nipping playfully at her ears while she grumbles and tries to swat them away. Santana still believes them ill omens, and perhaps she is right, but only time will tell.

She takes the route out of the main town, sidestepping the growing craters on the snowy ground and deciding to take the less used forests back to Brittany's home. The silence will help clear her head amongst the skeletal trees with the mountains looming above her. (She has to admit, it is a jarring change from Iberia. Apart from the sea, there is only one entrance in or out of the town, guarded on both sides by high reaching mountains that swallow the sky.)

Flanked on all sides by whispering birch that watch her cautiously with their warped eyes, she delves further into the naked forest, cutting by memory what she hopes is the correct route. The longhouse of Brittany's father sits on a slight elevation, but even that is not great enough to spy the turf-covered home from the trees, the protective spruce shielding it from view. Maria sidesteps the gnarled wolverine droppings cautiously, eyeing the deceptively small gouges their claws have carved into the bark of a nearby fir. The spirit of bears in the body of a weasel; she's known them to cause many an unsuspecting injury.

She goes to pass the tree the wolverine had marked when she spots footsteps in otherwise pristine snow. Frowning, she looks around in an attempt to locate the source, but they seem to have meandered aimlessly for a while before disappearing around the trunk of a rather large fir that stands stoically against the elements. From what she can tell, them seemed to have come from the general direction of the town.

"Hello?" she asks cautiously, taking a single step towards where the tracks vanish. No reply meets her, and the trees sing no warning. She continues. "Is anybody there?" Still nothing but the murmuring of the wild, and she increases her pace, nearing closer to the final place. Upon closer inspection it can be seen that the prints are dragging slightly, a sluggish gait that is too heavy for the relatively light amount of snow (they say snow to their shins is light, but to Maria it is massive. _Wait until true winter!_ they chortle, and she hopes the war is done before then) that has fallen.

"Are you well?" she calls out as she rounds the tree, only to stutter to a stop and suck in a startled breath. Sitting against the trunk is what used to be a man—all his limbs are still intact in his robe and all his digits upon those limbs, but whatever used to make his face human has been torn away. From the way his head hangs down and out of sight she can see only shadows, but those shadows are gruesome at best.

Maria tentatively steps forwards and kneels beside the man, wrapping her hands in her sleeves before grasping at his chin and pulling him upwards. Red weeping wounds meet her, along a large patch of black where the flesh has simply been... burned through. His nose is a melted lump fused to the rest of his face and his eyesockets are empty, gazing outwards sightlessly. With his lips peeled away, his face is bared into an eternal grimace. Maria sighs sympathetically, tugging on what remains of his blond locks at the back of his neck and skating her eyes over the rest of his attire. He must have been a priest in his former life.

"What happened to you, my friend?" she asks quietly, closing her eyes for a moment as she presses her thumbs to what she believes is his brow, breathing out heavily and letting a wisp of blue smoke curl into his open mouth where he delivers unto her the last minutes she wants so desperately to know.

_He has been trapped here for what feels like seasons. _

_ His prison used to be a longhouse, smoky and dimly lit, but his holders grew tired of his incessant murmuring and instead brought him out into the blinding light of day to sit with his hands bound behind his back, helpless to sit and watch as the barbarians of this town laughed and spat on him. At first he would yell, pray, throw scripture at them like knives, but it did nothing but confuse them. How could they even begin to understand the word of God if none knew a book by sight?_

_ The days are dark and cold, even for this wretched place. Father Ifan would lose feeling in his hands at the start of the morn and it would only return at the end of the eve when they haul him back inside the murky longhouse to sleep, cradling his raw wrists and muttering prayer under his breath. They think him touched in the head, they do, whispering amongst themselves as he crosses himself over and over and begs for guidance, for repentance, for benevolence. Much like his son must have done before they slaughtered him to appease their heathen gods. _

_ They have left him for the moment out in the cold to relieve himself; he is tethered to his stake like a dog, and even if he did run, where could he go? There is one entrance in and out of Kaupang, and it is always within sight of someone. The waters are far too cold this time of year to even entertain the thought of swimming without catching his death. Resigning himself to his continued detainment, he tucks his undergarments back into position and makes to return to his seated position, but is stopped by the crackle of a foot against unbroken snow. A flash of dark furs—he knows. _

_ "I knew you would come to me eventually," he announces curtly, spinning to face the girl that has so stalked him both in the waking world and in the realm of dream. "Just like a sinner that can never resist temptation."_

_ Her smile is amused, her full lips curling at the edges as she looks at him with what he thinks is scorn. Despite being much shorter, she seems to look down her nose at him; the cocky, confident tilt of her jaw makes her look much stronger than what she is. "If I am the sinner then you must be the sin. Which would best suit you?" she looks over him languidly, eyes lingering on what used to be a rotund belly. "Gluttony, perhaps. Much better than lust... I could never imagine any woman willingly bedding something as foul as you." _

_ Father Ifan crosses himself vigorously, shaking off her blasphemous words. "A man of God lays with no woman, for the sins of the flesh are absent from him." _

_ "Is that so?" she purrs, taking a few casual steps towards him. "Then what of your son? Surely he had to have been born from union of the flesh. Or are you saying he was never yours?"_

_ Red clouds over his vision, and he rushes to her a moment before the collar snaps tight around his neck and stops him just shy of her body. She smirks as he gags, stumbling back a few steps to regain air into his lungs. "My boy was given to me by the Lord," he hisses, coughing once or twice, "nothing so foolish as a human union could have given him to me." _

_ The priestess looks over him, deliberating that fact. "Samuel was a good man, this is true," she acknowledges, "a kind man. It was a shame what was done to him, but the people here are different than what you know. These traits mean little when they are frightened of their gods. Then again, who is to say that is much different? You fear the afterlife so that you will slaughter thousands to be put in better eyes than your comrades."_

_ "Do not talk about these people as if you are better than them, heathen whore, or as if you knew my boy. You will burn in the fires of Hell like all the rest." _

_ Her face turns cold in an instant, stony; her eyes take on a dangerously dark sheen and she advances so quickly that he is knocked off balance, landing hard on his tailbone as she crouches above him. "I will burn like prophets and naysayers, hm? Then tell me, what will happen to these people?"_

_ Father Ifan sneers, jerking his head away as she attempts to turn his gaze towards her. "You know what will happen to them, just as you know what will happen to you." _

_ Santana bares her teeth in a rough grimace, shaking his skull so viciously that his brains rattle. "What are you planning, priest?" _

_ "Knowing will not stop the inevitable!" he shouts at her, grinning manically. "All will fall under the Lord! All will burn under his consuming light!" _

_ "Consuming, hm?" She smiles slowly, devilishly, taking his temples in her hands. "Give me what I want, or else I will show you the true meaning of that word."_

_ "Never, Moorish bitch," he spits, startling as the darkness in her eyes grows until it devours any light left behind. The grip upon his temples crushes, pounds, drilling into his head and his mind. He screams and thrashes as he feels her presence invade his thoughts like a disease, pulling from him all of the things she wishes to know. Through him she learns of Harald and his wish to take his homeland with relative peace, and the crown's division on razing the barbarians to the ground. She sees her mother, trapped in her cage day after day, seeking solace from her torment. She witnesses William and his body bent prostrate to the ground, whispering fervent prayer into the necklace of Christ's cross that he has at all times around his neck. She watches the soldiers go about their games, their massive force intimidating in its girth._

_ From the reflection of the calm fjord he sees the dark tendrils that have crept out of her fingernails and spiderwebbed across his flesh, sinking barbs into his skin and soaking into his blood. He screams and curses as something so much older than he is able to comprehend wraps itself around his soul and refuses to let go. Santana detaches with a sucking inhale, letting the darkness that had leaked from her dissolve through his bone and into his mind where it would linger forevermore. Father Ifan roars and struggles against the invisible barriers, his cheeks ruddy as he screams. _

_ "You will burn for this!" he howls. "All of you will burn! I will watch as you die and know that the Lord has cast you into the pits of Hell where sinners like you and your unnatural warrior belong! I will—" _

_ One of her hands anchors over the center of his face, and he has only a split second to find the burning hatred in her eyes before she shows him the true fires of his Hell and his world is erased in an explosion of white. _

_ His lifeless body topples backwards into the water and Santana retreats as if nothing had occurred, flexing her burnt hand once or twice before the darkness takes away the sting. _

_ The shell of his being floats for a while like a dead fish, bobbing in the swell, the scent of cooking meat and charred hair thick in the air. His captors eventually return and shout for aid; together they reel him in by the leash around his neck and haul his dead weight onto the banks, recoiling at his frozen smile and fused skin. One bends down to look at him critically and shakes his head of black hair before lumbering away, telling the others to place his body somewhere where it will not easily be found. He is dumped in a dark, empty barn with only the animals for company, set to wait until they figure out what to do with the corpse. _

_ Until it comes. _

_ Father Ifan does not remember regaining consciousness, for that would be too generous a word—a hand on his shoulder coaxes him from the darkness that had taken him so, smothered his entirety. His waterlogged lungs gurgle as he inhales and it strokes movement back into his deadened limbs. _

_**Rise, **__it whispers, and he follows, stumbling to his feet. He is blind to the world now, his eyes long gone from their sockets, but the world around him is still real. __**Leave, **__it commands him.__** Become.**_

_ He staggers from the barn amidst the nervous baying of the animals until he is out in the snow and the frost, moving in any direction that is not here. Distantly, he thinks that there should be more to an afterlife than this, but the thought is soon taken away by his new master. _

Maria jerks back from the contact in time to avoid the hand that reaches for her, stumbling back into the snow as the man turns his sightless face in her direction. His grinning teeth click themselves together as he hauls himself to his feet, awkwardly swaying for a moment before he rights himself, listening intently for the source of her panicked breathing.

Brittany had told her of the draugar, surely, the dead that walk the night, but to see one in its true form... she scrambles to her feet and feels Ataecina's fortifying power fill her, mixing with her own mind until they are one. "Stay back," she says with only a slight tremble, but he (no, _it _now) continues to advance until she has no choice but to push him back, extending her palms and sending the blue magic rushing towards him. The impact causes his ribs to bow and splinter under the pressure and his body flies back into the trunk of the tree, remaining motionless for a moment before once again wobbling into a standing position. Bone shards protrude from his robes, but he simply puts forth a rattling wheeze that sounds eerily like a laugh before reaching for her once again.

_Mother!_ she calls, striking out at him and knocking him off balance, giving herself enough time to backpedal. _What should I do? _

_Burn it, my child, _responds Ataecina in a voice so severe she hardly recognizes it, _burn it to ash._

The white fire begins as a small ball between her palms until it is swirling in ropes around her arms, the heat searing as it roars about her. Maria bares her teeth and flings it towards the advancing draugr, the two streams merging into a single jet of flame that impacts the rotting body and consumes him entirely.

Much in the way he had met his first death does he so meet his last.

She kneels down after his smouldering body hits the earth and cups snow into her blistering hands, wincing as the cold stings before it soothes. More disturbed with the knowledge of what Santana has done than the charred corpse lying motionless on the ground, she wheels around and begins her hurried ascent to Brittany's home, this time with a different goal in mind.

* * *

><p>In the light of the fading day, Santana plays with a loose strand of Brittany's hair, wavy after so long in the braid. She had helped her wash it, smirking as she ran her soapy hands over Brittany's strong back and made her shiver, splashing water over the floor. Now, clean and smelling faintly of lavender, Brittany rests on her back with Santana sprawled on top of her, fingers lazily threading her blonde hair between themselves.<p>

"You had a talk with your father, then?" she asks after a calm silence, tilting her head up slightly to look more fully at her warrior. Brittany sighs and nods, her thumb absently stroking a pattern on Santana's hipbone.

"He is not happy," she admits, "but I managed to convince him I would marry Finngeirr once the war is over."

Santana quirks an eyebrow. "And he believed you?"

Brittany shrugs. "I have never had reason to lie before." She smiles slightly then, squeezing playfully at Santana's side. "You are a bad influence on me, my love."

She starts as Santana crawls up her front to deliver a quick peck to her lips. "Not my fault that you find me irresistible," she teases, nipping at Brittany's jaw. "If we could find a few moments alone in this manic town, I could show you just how much of a bad influence I can be."

Brittany whimpers slightly, clenching her thighs together as Santana's weight upon her becomes more pronounced, her hips rocking lightly against her abdomen. "If I remember—" she gasps, momentarily losing her train of thought as Santana sucks the lobe of her ear into her eager mouth, "you were the one begging me a few nights ago."

Santana hums, squeezing at Brittany's chest through her tunic. "How could I not? You had just rescued my last living kin from a dangerous enemy encampment. That was terribly heroic of you," she pauses, propping her chin on Brittany's prominent collarbone. "Unwise, but heroic. I had to show my heroine a little appreciation."

"I would love to see what a lot of appreciation means to you," Brittany grins lecherously, coaxing Santana upwards to her for another kiss. Before their mouths can connect the door flies open and Santana jumps from her as if shocked, whipping her head around to the source of the noise.

Brittany props herself up on her elbows, hair mussed and wild, and watches in confusion as Maria strides in, muttering angrily under her breath and attempting to shake the snow from her cloak. It is only when the attempt to undo the clasp reveals her seared hands does the warrior jump up, rushing to her side. "You are hurt, high priestess!" She looks at Santana and the other girl instantly dives for her medicine horn, laying discarded off the side of the bed. "What happened? Let me see."

She convinces Maria to turn up her hands, exposing the worst of the burns. It looks much like what Santana used to do and she grimaces in sympathy, sending her to a stool with a stern look when the older woman goes to protest. (No wonder Santana can never resist that face.) While Brittany goes to collect lumps of snow to help with the pain, Santana fills a pot with water and hangs it over the hearth, placing pieces of dried lavender inside so it will steep and leech the healing properties. Maria notes their flame is the same pure white that had so wounded her but decides not to say anything, smirking slightly instead at her daughter's flushed cheeks and unfastened robe. Santana seems to realize her train of thought as her head ducks in embarrassment and she hunches further over the flames, sighing in relief as Brittany walks back in.

"Here, hold this while Santana does whatever it is she's doing," she hands a loosely-packed snowball to the High Priestess and peers curiously into the pot for a moment, herself seeing nothing but lavender bobbing in the water. "Is that all?"

"Lavender is good for burns," Maria informs her sagely, cupping her painful hands around the snow. Santana seems startled for a second that another knows what she's doing before softening and nodding her head, stirring the solution for a few moments before her curiosity gets the better of her.

"What happened?" Santana asks with a frown. There are few times that her mother will have to resort to magic rather than words, and fewer still that require anything other than Ataecina's light.

"A... what did you call them, Bretagne? A _draugar?_"

"One of them is a _draugr, _not _draugar,_" she corrects automatically before raising her eyebrows in alarm. "There was a draugr here? In Kaupang?"

"Yes, there was. It surprised me in the forest. It was the priest that you had captured moons ago—or, I believe it was. He wore the robes."

Brittany licks her lips. The irony that he was turned into the same thing as his son is not lost on her. "Is it...?"

"Dead? Yes, I burned it." She gestures to her hands. "I am not as proficient with fire as my daughter, it seems." Santana shrinks slightly in her seat, clenching her fingers together on instinct before busying herself with the pot. The water bubbles now and she carefully lifts it from the flame, setting it down upon the ground where it will eventually cool.

"This will take a while," Santana mumbles, getting up to rummage for bandages. "We should bind them to keep the wounds clean." She procures rolls of linen and ever so carefully winds them around her mother's hands, taking care to avoid pressing too hard. Brittany watches curiously as she steadily avoids eye-contact until she's done, glancing up quickly and offering a faint smile before backing up and collecting her things.

"The infusion should be ready in a few hours," she says, nodding at the bucket. "Wake me in a few hours." And with that she walks over to their bed and flops down upon it, face-first, barely stopping to deposit her things at the side of the bed. Brittany and Maria share a look between them that goes unnoticed.

"Bed?" Brittany asks, "I know it is dark, but that does not mean it is time to sleep."

A muffled _bed_ is heard from beneath the animal furs and Brittany sighs, mouthing an apology for Santana's strange behaviour before approaching her. Santana steadfastly refuses to look at her mother; eye-contact will result in a conversation, and a conversation will result in her being scolded like a young child who has just done some deep moral wrong. Brittany is blissfully unaware of this, instead crawling up Santana's back and settling there, nosing hair from her neck until the body underneath her squirms in an effort to get away.

Maria smiles fondly at the sight, settling back against what she believes used to be Santana's own bed. If there was one thing her daughter has done right recently, it was choosing the proper person to hold her heart.

...

She's awoken a few hours later to the feeling of gentle hands wrapping cold bandages around her palms, delicately covering her knuckles and her wrists, the rich, perfumed smell of lavender floating up to meet her. Maria opens her eyes groggily and watches silently for a moment as Santana tends to her wounds, dipping the new bandages in the solution before applying them to the burnt flesh. She looks around, noting how the flame has dimmed and the bed has been left in shadow.

"Brittany has gone down to her father to inform him of the draugr attack," she responds to her unspoken question. "If there was one, there might be more lingering about."

Maria nods and allows Santana to tend to her for a moment, waiting until she is trapped with the repetitive motion of winding the linen to strike.

"I know what you did," she says quietly, carefully watching Santana as she stiffens almost imperceptibly.

"What did I do?" Santana returns flatly, tying a knot at the wrist and moving onto the other hand. Her shoulders are rigid and her lips set into a line, but Maria has grown up with that attitude and knows more than people think about warding it away. (Today, she has no misconceptions about pulling punches.)

"Healing Gynna? Many think you a miracle worker." The stiff hold of Santana's posture relaxes slightly, and she nods to herself.

"She is just grateful, that is all. She exaggerates."

Maria licks her lips hesitantly. "Perhaps. But I do not think she does."

Santana pauses in her application of the bandages and looks up with a scowl. "Have you seen what I did, then? Did you watch it as it happened?"

"No, but I saw how you murdered that man, to whom I gave the final death."

Her daughter stops entirely, her eyes widening imperceptibly before taking on that familiar sharp quality. "It could have been another villager holding his head over a flame. They hate him as much as I."

Maria rolls her eyes. "Yes, because the others could place a print in the shape of a hand on the center of his face. Everyone has that ability. Surely, they must be hiding it."

Santana withdraws fully, leaving the bandage half-looped around her hand. "Fine, I lost my temper and killed him. What does it matter? He was a deserving piece of shit who tormented you for moons."

"I would lecture you about your lack of concern for human well-being, but clearly, that does not seem to bother you now," Maria hisses lowly. "What _does_ matter is the fact that you used blood magic to do all these things. What have I told you about that, time and time again? Do you forget what it can do or what it has done?"

Annoyance flares in Santana's chest, red-hot and scalding, bringing acid to her tongue.

"Of course I remember," she snaps in irritation, balling up the old bandages and throwing them into the fire. "My childhood consisted of you telling me stories of men who had gone mad from power."

Maria frowns, disliking the bitter tone in her daughter's voice. "They went mad because they turned from the right path, the just path. The Goddess is simply one means of achieving that passage."

"Yes? Well, when I needed her the most, Ataecina left me and I was forced to rely on _myself_ for guidance." Santana throws her hands up angrily in the air. "I am the one that will forge my own path, not some deity that comes when she finds it fitting to do so. We need more than that if we are to survive the war."

"Do you truly believe that this god will treat you any better than the one who had raised you?" Maria asks softly, feeling the Mother's sadness wrap around her like a shroud. Santana seems immune, or perhaps ignorant, wrapping her arms tightly about herself.

"We should speak no more of this," Santana mutters, "what's done is done. I do not wish to fight."

"Why not? I waited until Brittany left to confront you. I could have done this in front of her. How do you think she would feel?"

"I know how she feels!" Santana yells suddenly, clenching her fists. "No one ceases to tell me just how _worried _they are or how _unsettled_ they feel. I _know_. Yet, they do not trust my judgement or my own abilities to control it. I have seen what Styrr has become, but I won't take it that far. Once Harald has been vanquished I will rid it of me and life will go on."

"Are you really that naive?" Maria asks in disbelief, steeling herself against the hurt in Santana's eyes. "Do you truly think that you can simply tear it from yourself like a thorn? A power like this _lingers_, mija. It remains and corrupts what used to be good, twisting it until you can listen to nothing but its call. I know that you are strong, and I have always been so very proud of you, but no one is strong enough to break free from an influence so dark without aid." She shuffles to Santana, ever so lightly brushing at her hands with her own, her eyes tracing the dark scars and the perfect, burnt circles. "Please, my love, let me help you. We can finish this together."

Santana swallows heavily and curls her own hands over her mother's bandaged fingers, searching for an answer. Perhaps she is right... the nightmares and the impulses are so, so tiring. But they need this for the battle, don't they? The ability to heal and return to fight? (What will the cost be? Something too high, she knows.)

The door swings open and shatters the moment; Santana jerks back, shaking her head. "I need to go," she mutters lowly, brushing past Brittany who stands confused in the doorway. Maria rests her head on her forearm with a tortured sigh, barely registering the hesitant hand that smooths itself down her back.

"How do you deal with her when she is like this?" she asks Brittany, who shrugs silently.

"I trust her," she replies simply. "I do not understand magic or demons, nor what the repercussions will be. I worry for her as any lover would, but I keep the nightmares at bay and hope that she knows what she is doing."

"And if she doesn't?"

"Then I will aid her when the time comes," Brittany responds grimly. "There is no use mourning over what has not yet come to pass."

Elsewhere, Santana thinks the opposite.

Why are they all so fixated on her imagined failures? Can they not trust her, just this once? Brittany she can forgive, as she knows next to nothing about the spiritual realm, and continues to support her through these changes that must seem terrifying to those who do not know. But her mother? Sophias? All those she thought she could trust to stand by her have turned and beneath her rage is a grief that cannot be put into words. When they lay dying and she is their salvation, _then_ they will know. Then they will understand. Then, and only then, they will love.

Her feet take her to where she can feel the one person that will truly know her frustrations, shouldering by startled townsfolk as she makes her way to the docks. Styrr has found his home in the sea, watching the waves as they crash against the shore and listening to the unheard whispers of those who have left their bones at the bottom of the dark waters. He does not move when she stands beside him, nor does he attempt to comfort her as she glares angrily into the churning depths. (The ocean is the one thing that has not yet been tainted by the darkness. It moves as it always does, sensing the coming confrontation and roiling with the anger of men.)

"How do you manage with so many people who hate you simply for your choices?" she asks him in a huff, casting a small rock into the sea. It vanishes with a small _plop_ and sinks forevermore into the ocean. "It drives me insane that they do not trust my path."

"A person is made up of their choices," Styrr responds, "and how you shape them determines who you are."

Santana frowns. "I am more than my decisions."

"Are you? It is your decisions that make you react this way, choosing to follow through with a choice instead of doubling back for the safety of what you already know. It is how your loved ones know you."

"They do not understand my reasonings, though."

"Some will never understand," he says instead as she continues to fume, "you must accept that and move on."

"How can I?" she responds miserably, glancing out to the skies that are heavy with incoming snow. "My own mother, whom my lover risked her life to return, has turned against me."

Styrr looks at her through the corner of his eye. "Has she? Or was she simply looking out for you, as any mother should for her child?"

Santana scowls, clenching her fists. "You were the one that started this mess, so you are not allowed to play the role of wise and well-intentioned mentor. If I had never met you, she would find no fault in my ways."

"And yet you would still be blind and weak, crawling for a power you were not allowed to have."

Santana bristles, the very first beginnings of flame licking at her fingers. "I used it only as a last resort, to undo something that should never have been done."

The man smirks slightly. "Perhaps, but you use it rather liberally now for someone who insisted it was a singular attempt. I notice that your hands are untouched, while those of your poor mother are certainly scarred for the foreseeable future."

At her stare, he shrugs. "I was there when Bretagne reported it to her father. Due to the fact that you were not hanging from her like a lost dog, I assumed it was your mother who sealed his fate. A bit cruel to have her cleaning up after your mess, isn't it? Someone of your age could have finished the job just as easily without causing such a fuss."

"He was _dead_ when I left him!" Santana sputters angrily, throwing her hands in the air. "I had melted his nose to his face! You were the one who so decided to raise him from the dead and turn him into the same abomination that claimed his son."

After the words leave her mouth, a smile curls onto his face. It is not his usual thin snake-smile; it is full and broad, sinister in the ways his eyes crinkle and stretch at the edges. It makes her take a faltering step back at the sheer maliciousness that plays across his lips. "I was not the one that brought him back, priestess."

"You lie," she spits, but anyone can hear the worry behind her voice. "You are the only one capable of doing that here."

He arches one fine eyebrow, and that smile turns into a smug, triumphant smirk. "Am I?"

Santana falters, swallowing. "Y-yes."

Styrr runs his fingers delicately along his staff, the black wood whispering under his touch. "What do you think you do in the dreams you cannot remember, Santana?" he asks softly; kindly, almost, if not for the cruel set of his eyes. "Where do you think you go? Not to the Goddess you have turned from, certainly. To another god, perhaps?"

Flashes of dark smoke and darker eyes invade her mind but she shoves them away, refusing to believe his serpentine wording that wraps around her heart. "You're wrong," she whispers hoarsely, backing up once more as he fully turns to face her. "You... no, you're wrong."

"What do you remember about that village up in the north, Santana? What do you _truly_ remember?"

_Everything is dark and quiet and night has fallen all around the earth as she glides into their homes on feet made of smoke, whispering and muttering and chanting as the web their dreams have woven become their prison. _

Santana groans and clutches at her head, forcing the memories to bay. "The darkness did that," she hisses, leaning heavily on her staff for balance. "It killed them. Not me."

_She raises her hands to set forth a motion that will erase any shreds of hope; the draugar descend upon them and they wake too late, too late. The air is filled with screaming and crying as the scent of the town swells with blood that runs in rivers through the streets. _

"Then why did you feel so guilty, hm? They were just filthy peasants living on the edge of barbarism. You had no cause to be merciful and turn them to ash. Yet you did." Styrr digs up things she never knew she did with a voice akin to a melodic metronome**,** and the memories all merge together in one bloodied reel. "My reach is not great enough for all of these acts. But yours? It is more than enough."

_The thing wrapped around her shivers in delight as her ethereal form brushes against the pinking lake, the floating bodies dispersing their essence into the black water. Draugar moan and hum their appreciation and the little burnt people skitter about with their grating laughs—they are not One, not yet, but its patience is unbending and the end in sight. _

All at once all those lost nights come flooding back, like rushing back into her own body as Brittany shakes her awake. So many people returned to their bodies as monsters, dragged from their graves only to turn on their loved ones and devour to so repeat the cycle. Santana chokes down a sob and presses her hand over her mouth, closing her eyes so she doesn't have to look at him.

"Why me?" she manages to get out from under her palm. "Why did it choose me?"

Styrr shrugs, unapologetic. "That is something only my Master can tell you. I do not know, nor do I ask. I am simply its mouthpiece and its arm, and I will do what it says."

"I will not become a slave like you," Santana whispers, shaking her head. "I would sooner renounce all I love than turn into a puppet."

It is then that his face changes, his expression softening. He almost looks... human, for a moment. "Do not say that, priestess. People will do many, many things for love. Even things that they would think unspeakable."

But she is vehement, taking a few steps back. "_Nothing_ will turn me into you," she vows to him, and barely hears his returning call as his figure is splashed by the sea.

"Turning into me is not your concern, priestess. It is turning into something _greater _that you should fear."

Santana wheels around and takes off on a brisk jog towards anywhere other than where he is, bombarding her with forgotten memories that had the intention of staying buried. An entire village... gone under her call. It makes her sick. So many lives snuffed out because she let down her guard and allowed it to control her so. Never again. From this day forth she will exert her dominance upon the Old One, not allow it into her mind as she once did.

The trees chuckle, and she whips around to the source of the noise.

**Do you truly think your resolve alone will save you?**comes the soft whisper just above her ear. She yelps and swats at it, drawing a few strange looks from the villagers, and she ducks her head as her cheeks burn in shame.

_You resort to tricks and deception in order to find control. Now that I have found your ruse, you will pose no threat to me. _

Her words are brave but her bravado is transparent, evidenced by her sweaty palms and the shaky swallow of her throat. Dealing with it always makes her feel weak, drained of any and all energy, like the life is being sapped from within her.

**You forget that the realm of dream is **_**my**_** domain, priestess. Here, I am eternal. I have watched mankind slumber for as long as they have had thought; you are no exception. **

_I am not like the others._ The sky now fully dark, Santana stumbles her way back to Brittany's home, aching for her light and comfort. Even the presence of her mother will prove a boon in attempting to chase the voices from her head.

**No, you are not...** it trails off wistfully. **Do you remember the joy you felt when you killed that village in the trees, priestess? The elation when they fell under our joined hands? Why do you resist your calling? **

Santana swallows her grief roughly, begging it to remain in her chest for just a little while longer. _Because I have something to fight for. _She rushes into Brittany's (their) home, almost falling over herself as she collides with the door and sends herself stumbling indoors. A head of blonde hair whips up and a moment later Brittany is there, taking her into her arms and looking over her stricken face worriedly. "Santana?" she tries, whisper-soft. "What happened?"

**I am patient, priestess, and mortal life is fleeting. You will come when the time is right.**

She stares at Brittany for a moment before hiccupping a loud sob, burying her face into her collarbone in a useless attempt to hide her tears. Brittany startles and draws her close, running her hands delicately down her hair, murmuring quiet shushing noises as she scoops her up and carries her to their bed. If her mother is around she pays no mind, curling further into Brittany as she cries and allowing her comforting scent to wash over her in waves.

When her crying has calmed a little she feels a furry warmth press itself as close as it can to her side; she turns her head slightly and gives a watery smile as Sandalio licks tenderly at her salty cheeks, cleaning her the best he can. He gives a few gentle licks to her nose and she grimaces when his tongue swipes over her eye but doesn't protest, complacently allowing him to do what he wishes before he deems his work satisfactory and collapses into her side, placing his head in her lap. She grips onto his scruff for strength, resting her forehead against Brittany's neck with exhaustion.

They lay there a few moments, the three of them, listening to the crackle of the fire and Santana's breathing that slowly returns to normal. Eventually, she lets out a deep sigh and kisses Brittany's jaw thankfully, making to move before long arms keep her in place.

"What happened?" she asks, and by the look in her eyes, Santana knows she will go nowhere until Brittany hears the full story.

"I..." she starts, but trails to a hesitant halt as she weighs the chance of a lie to keep her safe versus the truth to lay it bare. They had promised long ago to tell no more lies nor half-truths, but how much is the truth worth against the backdrop of a slaughter? Perhaps she is the danger that the others of said, worthy of such terror she had sowed in the wispy hours of dusk and dawn. The notion that she could be the cause of hatred in those eyes makes the vanquished tears return, budding on her eyelashes before Brittany shushes her and wipes at them with her thumb.

"I will not be mad," she reassures, calming, "I promise. You can tell me."

Their bond is an amazing thing, privy to each other's thoughts. Santana sighs shakily. "It was Styrr."

Her warrior stiffens angrily, rising from her slumped position. "Did he hurt you? Was he the one that caused this? That murderous, no-good, scum-sucking—"

"Brittany, no," Santana presses on her shoulders to push her back down, "no, he did not lay a hand on me. Or that priest, either."

Blonde brows crinkle in confusion. "Then what happened?"

Santana bites her lip. "It was me," she whispers hoarsely, looking away. "All of it was me. It... the darkness, the Old One; it takes me when I sleep and uses me to do things. Horrible, horrible things. I was the one w-who _slaughtered_ that entire village near Finnmork. Oh _gods, _Brittany, I remember all of it. The screaming and the dying and the people throwing themselves onto the streets only to be chased down and butchered. And I just... watched. Watched and laughed as everybody died."

"But..." Brittany whispers in disbelief, "I thought you did not remember your dreams."

"I don't!" Santana exclaims, only to amend. "Well, I didn't. Styrr, he... he showed me everything that I had forgotten and told me what happens in the night."

Brittany lays motionless for a long time with her brows knit into a contemplative frown, tracing absent patterns on Santana's hip. Santana holds her breath to the point where she feels as if she's going to pass out, eventually cupping Brittany's jaw and forcing their eyes to meet. "Please say something, Britt," she begs. "You're beginning to scare me."

Brittany's eyes soften at the nickname, and she places a fleeting but reassuring kiss to Santana's lips. "You say it takes you?"

"Yes, when I fall asleep."

"And... there is nothing you can do?"

Santana shakes her head. "Maybe now that I know what is happening, but... I am doubtful. The only thing that makes it better is when you are near."

Brittany smiles slightly, brushing their noses together. "Perhaps we just have to be closer then."

Snow blows into the room as the elder priestess returns for the night, shaking out her hair and fixing the two with a disbelieving stare.

"The only way for the two of you to be closer is if you slept skin against skin." Maria enters the conversation with an amused smile, relishing her daughter's burning cheeks and averted eyes. Brittany simply grins and nods her enthused consent. "I like that thought," she agrees, laughing when Santana buries her face into her pale neck.

_We said we would never leave each other, remember?_ Brittany asks her silently as Maria settles herself down on a nearby stool. _I will not break that promise. _

A great weight lifts itself from Santana, and her grief seems a little less smothering. _I love you, _ she says adoringly, smiling when the tips of Brittany's ears pink in delight.

_And I love you,_ she responds in kind before squirming from her position underneath Santana, stretching vigorously to the ceiling. "I think it is time for sleeping," she says out loud, glancing to the smoke-hole in the roof that is invisible in the darkness. "Night has descended."

"Night has descended for hours, Britt," Santana remarks in amusement, none the less getting up to tug off her outer robe. She has taken to sleeping once again with her silk slip on now that her mother has returned—strange considering their old home left no room for modesty between them, but something feels off about shedding her clothes now in such a different place.

Brittany, however, has no qualms about this; after undoing her belt she throws her tunic to the floor and wrestles her way out of her under-tunic, leaving her bare-chested and with only her linen leggings to cover herself. Santana squeaks and glances surreptitiously at her mother. "What do you think you are doing?" she hisses, blushing for the both of them. "Put your tunic back on!"

Brittany gives her a bemused look. "Why?" she asks genuinely, crouching to untoggle her thick boots. She kicks them off with a happy sigh and pulls at her woollen socks until they too come off, stuffing them in her boots and beginning to work at the drawstring of her pants.

"Because I am not too keen about my mother seeing your body," she grumbles back in return, self-consciously playing with her discarded robe.

Brittany chuckles and finally gets the drawstring knot; Santana has to look away while clearing her throat to avoid leering as Brittany, naked as the day she was born, bends over and puts away her clothing. (She still catches a glimpse of her firm, rounded rear, and Brittany knows if the smirk is anything to go by.) "Not like she has never seen it before," she says off-handedly, pulling back the animal skins and crawling halfway into bed. Brittany's _come hither_ eyes are difficult to resist on good days, but something about her sentence makes Santana pause.

"What is that supposed to mean?" she asks lowly as she takes off her own boots, narrowing her eyes at Brittany who simply responds with an innocent smile that doesn't match the twinkle of her eyes.

"It _means_ that she has already seen the body you covet so much, so you should stop being paranoid about it and come to bed. We _did_ say we had to be closer, didn't we?" she teases, enjoying the way Santana shifts so nervously at the side of the bed.

At Santana's hesitation, Maria butts in. "Honestly, mija, why are you acting like this? You should be diving into bed at any chance you can if that is what is waiting for you." Conspiring with Brittany may be her new favorite hobby—any tension is forgotten as Santana chokes on air and her dark skin blooms a shade of red no one can miss.

Flexing her hands nervously on the edges of her silk slip, Santana takes a deep breath before pulling it over her head and almost plunging under the furs, emerging to Brittany's amused smile and her mother's silent eye-roll that she can feel across the room. She wraps herself around her warrior, still pleasantly unused to the feeling of so much skin against her own at once. They curl around each other contentedly, but she just has to know...

"When has she seen you naked?" Santana mutters quietly, glaring as Brittany lets out a snicker.

"When we were returning home, of course. I had to change somehow."

Satisfied with this answer, Santana moves herself until she's laying somewhat across Brittany, breathing in the scent of her skin. The candle goes out and they're left in the shadow of a dying day with the silence that accompanies it.

"You're cute when you're jealous."

"Shut up."

* * *

><p>Brittany is awoken while darkness still reigns by a warm tongue lapping anxiously at her fingers.<p>

She mumbles incoherently and opens one eye, shutting it a moment after as Sandalio licks across her nose. Her hand passes over his body and she notes that his hackles are raised, his body vibrating with a deep, low growl. She frowns and instinctively runs her other hand over Santana, who sleeps peacefully for once. She searches for his eyes in the darkness.

"What is it?" she whispers quietly but his growling only increases until it rattles his whole body, the sound loud enough for it to travel through the space. His teeth flash white in the darkness the same time a minute noise comes from the opposite side of the bed.

Brittany freezes and subconsciously draws Santana closer to herself, looking over her shoulder where a shape moves in the deeper darkness. In such absence of light it is nearly impossible for anyone to navigate successfully without being previously submerged in shadow, and it proves to be her saving grace—she looks up in time to spot the whites of her attacker's eyes a moment before he plunges his spear where Santana used to lay.

The warrior lunges across Santana's body with her axe grabbed from her bedside, letting out a feral yell that wakes all the other occupants in the room. Sandalio lets out a torrent of furious barks that create a singular chaotic mess of noise as Brittany grapples for domination on the ground, her assailant fallen to the floor in his surprise. She snarls and grips the collar of his tunic as he struggles to find hold on her, only to come up with smooth and useless skin.

"Brittany?" Santana calls in alarm but she is farther away; Brittany grabs the man's head and smashes it against the ground, stunning him. It is a desperate struggle as he rolls her around and she struggles for breath under his weight until her teeth find home in the hand covering her mouth, shoving with all her might and driving her hip upward so that she rights herself again.

She sees stars as he slaps her hard across the jaw in his panic, cursing profusely but refusing to give up her position.

"I need light!" she yells back, pinning his biceps to the floor with her knees. A missed swing could spell death in such a volatile situation—her aim needs to be true and swift.

One of the two priestesses heed her call and the room is awash in an eerie glow that casts jagged shadows over half of her enemy's face; his surprise at her naked form gives her the gap she needs, and her axe comes down without hesitation. He gurgles as she saws through his neck, blood spurting and rippling patterns over her bare stomach. His beard is soaked with blood as he gasps for air, but she is more concerned with the other two men that have now had their sight restored to them. She pulls her axe from its hold in his throat and stands, warily watching as the two turn to keep her in their vision.

They are Harald's men. She recognizes the apparel, the strange tights. But how did they get here? His army is still so far out... nothing could have gotten them here so fast with the snows as they are.

The younger man of the two eyes her crudely, letting out a harsh laugh as she widens her stance and adjusts the grip on her weapon. "Nobody said there'd be such a nice piece o' flesh waitin' for me when I got here," he sneers, his gaze drawn to her breasts that heave with her exertion. "Makes the walkin' worth it. You ever taken a cock before, girlie?" His older companion grimaces in disbelief, but it turns to horror as the young man's body simply... explodes. There is no other word for it; fire envelopes him in a raging inferno and kills the next words on his tongue, burning his hair to ash and his skin to crisps. He screams and screams as he falls to his knees and writhes on the ground, the glow reflecting the ruthless and undoubtedly murderous expression that has taken home on Santana's features.

The sole remaining man swallows heavily and looks at Brittany for a long moment before weighing his chances and dropping to his knees, casting his weapon far away. She takes two long strides and crouches down to him, gripping the hair at the back of his skull and yanking their gazes to connect.

"Who sent you?" she demands in an angry growl, shaking him when he tries to disconnect their eyes. "What are you doing?"

"W-we came to take back the woman, I swear," he stutters in earnest. "If w-we could kill her daughter or you i-it would be considered an advantage. Lord Harald is _furious_."

Santana smirks darkly. "He is not the only one that is angry now."

Brittany shakes him to refocus, drawing the edge of her axe to his throat. "Are there others?"

He swallows nervously, and she presses it until a thin bead of blood rolls down his neck. "I _said_, are there others?" she snarls, "will I get stabbed if I attempt to leave my home?"

"N-not your home, but..."

A distant yelling catches their attention, and Brittany rights herself cautiously as she strides towards the door. Uncaring about her state of undress she makes her way out, stumbling into the cold night beyond. Her feet sting in the snow and the wind bites at her flesh, but she sees only one thing at all.

Kaupang _burns_.


	23. Chapter 23

**A/N: **One chapter until the Thing.

**A/N 2:** I uploaded the sort of unbeta'd versio, whoops. Here's the better one. Did y'all forget it existed recently?

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 23<strong>

**said goodbye to you my friend **

**as the fire spread**

**November 18****th****, 912**

It took much yelling and pleading to convince Brittany to put any clothes on at all.

Once Santana had threatened her into a pair of trousers and a tunic, she had thrown Brittany her gambeson and chainmail, shoving her warrior down on a stool while she rolled her socks over her freezing, sodden feet and toggled her boots on for her. Brittany got the armour twisted and almost burst into panicked tears before Santana took her face in her hands and whispered soothing things to calm her down, letting her suck in a few deep breaths before pressing a kiss to her temple. "Be careful," she whispered gently, tucking a lock of Brittany's hair behind her ear. "We will deal with this man and join you."

All Santana received was a nod before she was gone.

Now she runs down the hill, tripping and stumbling over her own feet, axe gripped hard in her hand as she crashes through the trees in the dark. Her eyes have not yet found themselves in the night - she stumbles into a skeletal bush once or twice, its hands grasping for her, but she tears free with a yell and rushes into her town that screams with flame. She whips her head around wildly; the giants are seen in the distance, blowing great gales of frozen wind and ice to halt the flames, but her father's longhouse groans like an injured animal and sways under the pain of the fire. All that can are passing water between themselves from anywhere they can reach—the sea, the well, the forest—but the blaze is yet too strong.

"Father!" she screams, running to the longhouse only to be pushed back at the wall of heat that meets her. She coughs, covering her mouth with her elbow, peering the best she can through the fire. The mead hall is obscured by a thick layer of dark smoke and timber falls in great booming explosions, splintering and sparking, breaking benches and stools and doorways. Bodies litter the grounds.

A large hand grasps her by the forearm and spins her around; her axe-arm rises instinctively to strike but all at once she is crushed to this person's chest—it takes but a moment to recognize his scent and she melts into Betar's arms. For a second the world seems less chaotic as he holds her tight, his beard singed but otherwise unharmed.

"Are you hurt?" he demands, worriedly running his eyes over her frame and her hastily donned clothing. She shakes her head, sheathing her axe.

"No, I... I'm fine. What happened?"

He grimaces. "Harald's men. A few of them came in the night and set the buildings ablaze."

Brittany nods, licking her lips. "They were in my home. We killed them, but it was close."

Her father's eyes darken dramatically. "They attack my daughter in her own bed?" His teeth bare into an angry grimace, snarling. "I will put their heads on my wall as victory, those filthy cowards."

As much as she wants to agree, a sudden call goes up as light shoots into the sky from beyond, staining the whole village with a beautiful orange glow for a few precious moments before a deafening, strained sound pierces the air and the villagers cower away from the noise. One man runs to them—a thrall, not like it matters now— and doubles over into a pant, his face stained with soot.

"My jarl, t-the... the forge! There is too much fire, we cannot control it!"

Betar frowns and looks into the sky where the embers of the collapse are drifting back down to earth, a phoenix that has fallen before it could rise. "The jotnar?"

"They are doing all they can, b-but there is so much..."

"Wait, the forge?" Brittany demands, already taking a half-step into town. "Where is Anvindr?"

"Inside," he says mournfully, "we could not get him out."

Before her father has cause to shout she is already sprinting off, her heavy chain dragging her body down, pushing past panicked townsfolk and desperately dodging smoking pieces of rubble that have been strewn out in the streets. That place where she had spent so many hours is a blazing shell with bright light coming from its every crevice, billowing black smoke out into the sky. People mill all about it and toss water onto the flames that simply steams and proves useless—the giants heave ice over the outsides, only to have it melt once again. She stumbles to the entryway, unable to see anything through the smoke.

"Anvindr!" she cries, ducking her head into the room only to recoil at the sting. "_Vinur_, where are you? Can you hear me?" No reply, nor is there his telltale form amongst the crowd. Swallowing briefly, she casts the chainmail she wears to the ground and pushes herself down onto her belly, crawling into the space despite the shouts around her to stop. Her world is instantly engulfed in an unbearable heat that penetrates down to her very core; sweat forms automatically on her brow and her throat burns in agony.

"_Vinur!_" she calls again, worming her way further into the space. She avoids the forge and has to backpedal once or twice as crumbling timber falls in front of her, searing her skin and trapping her head in a vice. She reaches nearly the end of the room before a shape catches her eye.

One would think it to be a child's limb, but she knows better. Her hand clamps around his withered ankle and draws him to her, shuffling forward on her elbows to get to him. Even in the obscurity of this hazy room, she sees his blackened flesh.

"Hold on, Anvindr, we can do this," she whimpers softly, rolling into a crouch. One of her arms worms its way under his broad shoulders and the other hooks under his bent knees. "This is going to hurt, okay? You can do it." She heaves him to her chest, cradling him close like a child, straightening up to a hunch and instantly feeling the way the smoke thickens and becomes unbearable. She falters and drops to one knee, eyes watering.

Instead of going back the way she came, Brittany focuses on the small hole that has been burnt through— a thin layer of ice has crept around and she sees the shadow of the giants as they move. Shuffling slowly at a limping crawl, she presses her shoulder to the wood and sucks in air through the cracks. "Break it!" she yells, but her voice is hoarse and raspy from the smoke and comes out as a whisper. She tries again, only to marginally better effect. Only now does the vague feeling of panic creep through her body and she lunges with her shoulder, landing sideways with a thud. The wood creaks, but does not break. "Break it!" she cries again and again until finally one massive fist smashes its way through the timber and she can stumble out into the open air with a deep gasp, dropping to her knees almost as soon as she touches frozen ground.

Lying there in the snow, she dares not put her friend down, instead drawing him close to her and peering into his face. Whatever she can see is covered by horrendous black burns that crack like dry leather; his hair has been melted to his skin or burned away completely. If not for his oddly shaped legs and the necklace he wears around his neck—a gift from her, he never takes it off—Brittany would never have guessed him to be anything more than a faceless corpse.

"Vinur?" she whispers in a small voice, shaking him slightly. He does not move and she sucks in a trembling breath, shaking him harder. "Anvindr, please, wake up. We survived through worse than this."

A sliver of blue—his eyes open and vaguely focus on her for a second, fleetingly, but they soon do nothing but see through her instead. Brittany leans in so close she can smell the burnt meat of his skin and touches at his cheek that is rough and dry under her caress. Another presence can be felt behind her, but she thinks of nothing but the boy in her arms as she shakes him vigorously in an effort to bring that sight back.

"No," she whimpers, "don't you dare leave me. Not now, Vinur, not like this, please wake up..." but as it becomes obvious that he will not draw breath again her whimpers turn into sobs and sobs into screams, only muffled as she presses her face against his body.

Arms wrap around her but she struggles free, cradling the corpse to her chest. "No! This isn't fair! I saved him! I s-saved him!" She turns to Santana with wild eyes, bloodshot from the smoke and tears creating clean tracks down her soot-smudged face. "Bring him back," she pleads. "I know you can do it, I know you can... p-please bring him back!"

Santana bites her lip and tentatively looks at the charred corpse in front of them, eventually shaking her head. "You know how he would come back," she tries to reason with her, "you do not want that for him. Nor would he."

Brittany turns from her again, curling around what remains of her friend, choking the wounded sounds into his chest. Santana simply wraps her arms around her body and waits out her grief in the cold while their world burns around them.

* * *

><p>Only after the flames long extinguish do they manage to pry Anvindr from Brittany's grip. She yowls and reaches for him as they take his body away, Santana anchoring her down into the snow where she thrashes and wails, hands reaching out to take him back. Sandalio howls a mournful song alongside her as she eventually subdues to silent, heaving sobs, collapsing back into Santana as if not even the weight of the world would keep her upright. Behind them, the charred husk of the blacksmith smokes.<p>

They gather the dead and wounded in the places that have remained unscathed from the flames—great barns and longhouses are full of the moaning sick, cradling their injuries and rolling around in agony. Those that are too far gone to save remain motionless, their black skin dead to the world around them. Maria sets to work almost at once, directing the traffic of wounded and suffering, each longhouse taking on a different set of challenges. With her hands as they are she cannot lend herself directly, but does what she can to ease their suffering, her blue magic swirling at her feet and putting to sleep a child who screams as they pick pieces of clothing out of his flesh. Gynna comes to her and becomes her limbs, treating them with what they have, soaking great vats of bandages in lavender.

Amidst the chaos comes the call for a ragged assembly; Betar, Styrr, Santana, Brittany, Yngvarr, Eyja, and a few of the nameless village elders are brought together for a plan of action. Brittany leans heavily on Santana as they make their way to the docks, out of earshot so as not to panic the villagers who have already suffered enough.

"Damage?" Betar begins gruffly, his beard stained with soot, and Eyja licks nervously at her lips.

"A dozen buildings either damaged or destroyed, thirty or so people killed, many more injuries. The forge is in ruins," she cuts her eyes sadly to Brittany for a moment, who swallows and looks away, "and Anvindr did not survive despite Bretagne's heroic attempts."

He nods and resists to comfort his daughter who looks pale and fallow, the life drained from her. "Do we know who they are?"

"They said they were Harald's men," comes Maria's voice as she trudges down the docks towards them, her robe stained with blood and ash. "Come to return me to him and to kill you and your kin."

Yngvarr bristles at the mere notion. "What kind of coward would attack in the middle of the night and slaughter sleeping warriors?"

"The kind of coward that is angry," Styrr interjects with his arms crossed tight over his chest. Despite the panic around him, he seems unfazed, his skin unsullied. "He would think it a blow to his honour that Bretagne could have so easily stolen away into their camp and taken someone so important. Now, he wants revenge."

"I thought it was said that the army was far to the east," one of the village elders says, "across the fjord. It would have taken them many, many days to march this far. Someone would have seen them."

"Only if they were actually that far east." All eyes turn to Betar who has fixed Santana with a stony, flint-like gaze. She hardens and matches his stare, jaw tight.

"What are you implying?" she growls lowly, the edges of her words holding a serpentine hiss. Brittany squeezes slightly at her waist in warning, but it is brushed off and ignored.

Betar takes a menacing step forward. "You said they were far away, many daywalks. We believed you." His hand sweeps around Kaupang, the smoke of their fires hanging heavily and shrouding the village in a deep haze that has not been swept away by the tidal winds. "Now there are many dead and wounded, and we are in shambles. Why? All because we trusted a _seiðr-witch _for guidance!" His voice has increased to a roar and Sandalio, previously unseen, growls as he tries to take another step backwards. With the hand not around Brittany's waist does Santana begin fire in her palm, clenching it in her fist so that it glows a blinding white through the crevices of her fingers.

"It is not my fault that it lied to me, old man!" she snarls angrily. "You were so desperate for aid that you took my word without even a thought! If any of the others had said the same thing, you would not be blaming them!"

"Both of you, stop it!" Eyja pushes between them before it can escalate to blows, her hands trembling only slightly as she lays one hand over Betar's soot-ridden chest. "If we fight between ourselves, we have no chance of surviving through the winter. We need to come up with a plan."

"Such as?" Styrr muses. "For all we know, they could be marching their armies through the mountain pass as we speak."

All eyes cast to the sole entrance to Kaupang, guarded now by farmers with weapons and armour. Though the village can fight, they are full of women and children, those too weak or too untrained to truly fight. If their army was to sweep in through the pass now, they would crumble under their might.

"Did anyone see them?" Eyja asks curiously, drawing gazes upon her again. "I woke when the flames went up, but there was no one around. For all we know a few crept in, lit the fires, and ran."

Maria makes a noise of agreement. "It would let them move faster through the land... it could explain how they got here without us knowing."

"What we need is a scouting party," one of the elders states, "a runner to find where their forces are and return with the information."

"No one can run that fast," Betar scoffs, "and even if they could, they would be slaughtered by Harald's men before they could even get close. They do us no good dead."

He notices Brittany share a look with Santana, and between them passes their silent language. It never ceases to unnerve him, sharing secrets without sound. "I could do it," the younger priestess says, drawing herself up to her full height. Hushed murmuring breaks out amongst the elders but Styrr nods his head in agreement, casting his gaze down to Sandalio at their feet.

"I will not send you out when you led us astray in the first place," Betar dismisses, but is interrupted by the other man and his demeaning scoff.

"Please, do not let your pride get away in the well-being of the village," Styrr sneers, narrowing his glacier eyes at the jarl, "she is our best chance."

Betar steps up to him angrily, hovering close to his face. "Are you suggesting I let a corrupt foreigner who can barely keep a handle on her own tongue be our sole hope?"

"Do not talk to her like that," Brittany attempts to snap, but her voice is too tired for it to have any effect. Betar glances her way but refuses to back down until Styrr rolls his eyes.

"She would not be going, obviously," he sighs, "the dog would. She would see through his eyes."

They all look down at Sandalio who wags cautiously, his tail making great sweeps in the snow. His ears prick forward as she senses the importance of the moment, climbing to his feet and standing proudly at his full height, sleek fur rippling in the dull morning light. A moment of silence, and then—

"I trust her," Betar turns to Yngvarr accusingly, who simply shrugs and grips at the handle of his great hammer. "We have no options, son, and we need to use the advantages we have. As it stands, we'd have more of a chance to lie down and surrender."

"She's done it before," Brittany adds, scratching at Sandalio's ears, "I promise it is easier than it sounds."

This time it is Maria who objects. "Soul-travelling is risky as it is, but with the Old One lingering about? It would take advantage, Santana. You will be leaving yourself open to it." Santana looks like she wants to rebuke but thinks better of it, instead clenching her jaw tight and glaring holes into the ground.

"Then you should be the one to do so instead," Betar states, nodding firmly. "You are more experienced, High Priestess. It will be safer with you at the front of the pack."

"She cannot," comes Styrr's drawl, bored and all-knowing. "The dog is bound to her daughter; they do not have enough of a connection. Are we going to stand here and argue all day about things that cannot be changed, or are we going to execute the only option we have?"

Betar rubs his hands over his beard angrily, the burnt bits falling to the ground, before he sighs in agitation and throws his hands up into the air. "Fine, fine! We will do this. But if they come again during the night, I willthrow _her_ to the dogs instead."

The group of them retreat to Eyja's hut where the chaotic swirl of the town center has dimmed to a murmur; they burn rosemary and thyme, scattering the ashes around Santana who sits on the floor. Maria rests behind her, bracketing her against her chest, much in the way Santana had held Brittany that same morn. A scrap of the attacker's clothing is placed in her left hand, and a small lock of Brittany's hair in her right. "For you to find your way there," Eyja says quietly, "and then your way back."

Santana closes her eyes and takes a great trembling breath—Sandalio lies before her, his body calm and at rest, his gaze trusting. She had thought it only possible with Ataecina's guiding light, but now, the power of her mother connected through the touch of their flesh, it takes on an entirely different meaning. Together they breathe in and out, in and out, until a dull trance comes over her and all she can hear are the heartbeats in the room thudding a disjointed tempo. Warm lips press against her temple, comforting and familiar even in their tremble, and she slips under the waves with a silent gasp.

* * *

><p>When Santana opens her eyes again, her world is washed in a sea of grey. She stands on wobbly legs, so close to the ground, her joints unsure of this new movement. Everything is sharp and precise; the individual scent of sweat from the people around the room, the incense from the herbs, and the overreaching and overriding smell of smoke that still lingers about the town like a god's vast cloak. Each person breathes at a different rate in the space and she hears them all, varying times that create a quiet hush akin to the ocean whispering in the dead of night.<p>

Brittany kneels down beside her, and with such clear senses she sees the grief still etched onto her features, her eyes dull and glassy—she whimpers and licks at her nose in an effort to wipe it away, and Brittany manages a faint smile. Her fingers run through her borrowed fur, scratching momentarily at her ears and down her flanks. "Find them," she whispers softly, "find them so we can make them pay."

Santana bows her head once before she turns from the room and bolts. Before she does, she catches the vaguest glimpse of her own body, limp and lifeless, sunk back into her mother's embrace with a frozen grimace.

She makes her way through the cold streets and down into the forests, the wind nipping at her ears and the snow stinging her paws. Sandalio's presence becomes known to her and together they run towards the mountains, ever stoic, massive now in her stolen frame. The call of the wild sings as her muscles bunch and release, and for the first time in moons she feels whole and free, torn away from the cloying presence of the Old One and its dark influences. She raises her head to the sky and howls joyously as they run only to be answered by the distant call of his ancestral pack, high up on their home of the mountainside. They are among the few that have not yet been chased away by this unnatural frost, wolves with eyes of glowing amber and pelts of eternal winter.

All at once they have broken free from Kaupang and tear down the road, uncaring of those they may pass. Smoke that rises from Kaupang betrays its burial, and those that see bless themselves and speak of omens, the days to come. Sandalio shows her how to follow her nose, seeking that stranger scent that runs itself out of Kaupang and into the forests, dotted with blood.

Together they weave into the woods only a short run from the town, the scent of man becoming stronger and stronger until they come upon the source. A group of them, perhaps ten or twelve, huddle around a crackling fire and gnaw on frozen jerky, nursing burns and battle-wounds. A few scattered shelters mark their position—hastily erected; they mustn't have been close for more than a few suns.

"Right mess that was," one of them grumbles, ripping extra hard at his food. Santana recognizes it as lutefisk, the burning smell of lye invading her sensitive nose. "Lost at least five men there."

"Yeah, but we destroyed their forge," another crows, swigging from his metal cup of ale, "love to see them try and rebuild that before the army comes in and kills 'em all."

An older man sighs, swirling about his drink in his own cup. "It feels strange, givin' allegiance to them French bastards who look down at us when they're nothin' but pansies. Killing men in their sleep? Not right."

A few of the younger men scoff, pushing at his shoulder. "Get over it, old-timer!" they chuckle and clink their cups together. "If Harald wants it done, it's gotta get done. He sent us northern blood because them soft ones from West Francia couldn't handle it. The night attack was their idea, anyway."

They begin to squabble between themselves until they decide to settle it when they find the rest of the army, who are still a daywalk northeast. With what that knowledge, the priestess and the hound begin their trek once again, loping at a steady pace down the travel-worn roads that have filled in with snow and ice, used now only as a footpath rather than a wagon trail. Frost crackles underfoot as the sky begins to dim and they must rely on their other senses to navigate, bypassing a lone wanderer or two, their thick fur keeping the cold far away. The freezing air through their joined lungs is a rush, a great release that shepherds them onwards past exhaustion. They stop to eat from a frozen carcass along the way, tearing with their powerful jaws, letting the solid lumps sit in their satiated belly as they continue onwards.

Eventually they begin to tire without any sight of the army and pause for rest, taking quick snatches of sleep that are fractured between her body laying here under the bow of a great fir and her human form still leaning back against her mother, twitching and gasping but still eerily silent. After nearly falling back into her own frame they decide to move onwards, moving under the cover of darkness.

It all seems hopeless until they smell the scent of cooking fires and the clamour of many men, some of them rustling about restlessly in their tents and others playing quiet games with each other—those more brooding stare into the flame instead with a grim expression, wondering no doubt of their fate to come. The two of them creep to the camp border only to halt at a sharp order, turning their head to look at the man that approaches them cautiously. To show that they mean him no harm they wag their tail, tongue lolling from their mouths, body doing a little excited wiggle as he crouches down and pets at their ears.

"Harmless little thing, aren't ya?" he coos and scratches under their chin, letting them through with a smile when they make to go further into camp. They catch some attention as they pass by, but a quick rub of their body against the soldier's tired knees quickly wins them hearts and scratches alike. Working from memory, Santana directs them into the near-heart of the camp, nosing their way into an unsuspecting little tent where they vaguely make out a mop of curly hair in the darkness. He smells like child, not yet a man, the musk of his sweat and the make of his armour contrasting against his frame. They paw at him, licking at his cheek, jumping back when he flails a little in his bed and looks around in confusion.

"What are you-" he squints and they sit patiently while he watches them, tilting their head slightly as he cautiously runs his hand through their fur. "I thought you were Mother Mary," he confesses with a lopsided smile, rubbing at one of their ears, "but this is a nice surprise. Where did you come from, boy?"

They remain silent, and after an obvious moment of inactivity, he shrugs. "Oh well, you can stay with me anyway. I bet it's cold now, what with all this snow. I overheard the soldiers saying it was 'bleeding cold', like the Anglo-Saxons... but keep that from father. He wants me talking like a lord, not a peasant." William rolls his eyes and steps into his clothing, shrugging on his thick furs to combat against the winter winds. "Come on, we have to go see Uncle Harald. Something about tactics."

They follow him out of his tent and across the way, into a larger one where they can already hear the heated voices hollering at one another. Harald himself sits hunched over a great table with a large sheet of parchment rolled out before him, both his hands planted firmly upon it and his shoulders bowed like a great weight sits upon them. Another man stands opposite him; short and portly, he does not command the same presence as this great man of the north.

"I am telling you, my Lord, our greatest tactic would be to besiege them! They have no practice in this kind of warfare, and the starvation would hit for greater damage than we could deliver." The fat man is turning red with his shouting, but to their eyes he simply is turning a deeper grey, his beady eyes shining with the exertion of straining his voice.

"Why would we do that when they are open to us?" he retorts in disbelief, running his hands through his long, light hair. "The king's army is a half-moon away, and they are practically defenceless!They have a _fraction_ of our forces now. We should sweep in and take the village before they truly understand what is happening."

The little man makes a sort of wounded noise, cradling his temples like Harald's words physically pain him. "What if your little revenge tactic does not work, hm? What if the devil-witch and her daughter still live? For all we know, they could burn us all with Satan's flame! It is much wiser to sit back and let them destroy themselves from the inside out. Kaupang only has one great entrance, yes?"

"They have little backroads, but they are too small for us," Harald reluctantly concedes with a frown, "we would need to rush them at once lest the giants and the magic kill us first."

"Exactly!" His adviser crows. "Starve them out and they will have no chance at all."

But Harald frowns, shaking his head. "We have a half-moon until Haraldr's army arrives, and then we will no longer be able to keep up with the siege. We would have to fight, flanked on both sides."

"You have forces coming in from the west, too, my Lord!" The nameless man wheedles—nay, begs—fruitlessly. "You rode day and night to arrive, remember? You still wear your travel clothes! Once they arrive, we will be put on more equal grounds. They will not have the advantage."

The warlord lets out a frustrated sigh and finally turns to William who sits quietly in the doorway, running his fingers through their fur. Harald's eyes flicker to them for a moment, his brow creasing in confusion, before the expression is smoothed away and returned to annoyance. "What do you and your new friend think, boyo?" Harald asks his nephew, beckoning him closer to look at the battle map laid out before them—a French investment, surely. Santana wills herself to balance on her back paws as she too gazes at the map, doing the best she can to memorize the lines.

William lightly traces the map with a contemplative frown, studying the crudely drawn fjord and the rough estimates of their positions. "Mother Mary says we should strike before they have a chance to recover," he says quietly, drawing a groan from the fat man beside them.

"Not this nonsense again, boy," he scolds, "if the Virgin Mary would talk to anybody, it would not be a boy of thirteen summers who has not yet won his first battle."

William scowls, looking up through a frown. "Remember you are talking to the son of King Rollo, Duke of Normandy," he threatens lowly, and the man backs off with a bow, still shaking his head. The boy turns his gaze to Harald who watches with hesitant eyes, unwilling to take sides. He is yet no true follower of this God—he believes because he must, not because he wishes. It worries him with how much fervour William has taken to his new religion.

"You refused to believe me, but the scouts have seen with their own eyes the men who ride on horned steeds and the horse-men of the forests. Just now, we saw a jotunn, remember? It was there when the High Priestess was taken. _Everything_ Mother Mary had said is coming true."

Perhaps, but...

"And it takes half a moon for Haraldr to arrive, no? Well, how long will it take a scout to tell him of the news in this weather? We have at _least_ a moon before he approaches. That is plenty of time."

Santana reluctantly admits that he makes a convincing case, with the subtle fire in his eyes and the commanding stance of his legs. He will make a great leader one day, far better than his father, who had to become a traitor to his lands of the north to find his power. Harald must see it too, for he licks at his lips and glances to the map once again.

"This... this Mary, she tells you to do so?" he asks carefully, eyeing his nephew. It is no secret that he is perhaps not the most... stable of individuals, but no one can deny his prowess in battle.

"Yes, it is her divine will. _Please_, Uncle."

A small smirk curls onto Harald's lips and he gives a little shrug, almost as if his hands are tied. "If a great, holy matron tells us to do so, who am I to refuse?"

Their adviser groans but William jumps a little in his excitement, briefly crushing his uncle into a hug before turning on his heel and running to his tent, undoubtedly to speak with his god. Santana watches him go with what would amount to a frown, turning it over and over in her head. A raid? When? How strong? Do they have the forces needed to repel it? Oh gods, too many decisions.

Her thoughts are broken by Harald's voice, harder now that his nephew has left his tent. "Tell the men that we march on first light," he commands, leaving no room for negotiation. "I expect to be upon Kaupang in two daywalks. We must strike them before they have time to regroup." The man sweeps out of the tent, and suddenly, they are alone.

Harald fixes his piercing gaze upon them but they refuse to back down, their hackles rising slightly until the leader gives a smile and extends his hand to sniff. He smells like stew and salt, something that makes the hunger in them whine despite their inherent dislike and give a few licks to his fingers, to which he chuckles and scratches at their scruff. "William seems to like you, hm?" he asks rhetorically, rolling up their map and all the secrets it contains. Perhaps...

He stashes it out of sight, and she has no choice but to follow him as he exits into the main camp, his hands hooked at his belt as he walks. She notes that he still dresses the traditional northern way he must have for so many years, choosing not to wear the strange clothing of his new country. "That boy has certainly been more upbeat ever since he found the White Christ," Harald informs them, strolling along and nodding at the soldiers who bow to him. "Not sure if that is a good thing yet... ever since those visions started he stays up all night praying. Some think him a bit touched in the head."

They pass the kitchen that bubbles with the rations of the day; their stomach growls and Santana must resist the urge to let out a humanized groan of discomfort. Harald chuckles at the few bits of saliva that drip from their jaws at the smell. "You must be hungry, coming from the wild." Ducking inside he orders the cook to pour them a small bowl of stew which he promptly sets on the ground; they don't think twice about burying their muzzle in the succulent broth, lapping away and burning their tongue. Santana still hasn't gotten used to drinking with a canine mouth, but Sandalio guides her. Harald sits beside them and watches as they hungrily devour their meal, warming from the inside out.

"It must be nice being a dog," he muses, "no worries, no responsibilities, no wretched brother breathing down the back of your neck to conquer a whole kingdom. He should be the one here, in my place, fighting and dying with these men." She turns to eye him for a moment at the bitterness in his tone before going back to their meal, slurping up the remnants of the bowl and then foraging for those last meager scraps.

"But what would you know?" he sighs, looking up into the sky where the stars have been hidden, the clouds swollen and heavy with the promise of more snow. _More than your moronic advisers, _Santana thinks, but it comes out as a low rolling grumble of sound. Harald looks amused by the gesture, ruffling their fur.

"More than I think, hm?" he chuckles, rising to his feet. "Go find somewhere warm, boy. Maybe William will give you a name if you stay—we all need rest for the marching ahead." The lord pauses before shaking his head, a tired smirk on his face. "Am I truly talking to a dog now? I must be starved for reasonable company."

For a moment, they hesitate. How easy it would be to wait until he slept, creeping up and clamping their jaws around his throat, ripping and tearing until he died in his bed. The war would end before it could reach them and they would be safe, annihilating a crippled army that fights with no leader. But they would not come out unscathed—in all likeliness, her hound would pay the ultimate price.

Feeling him so trusting and calm makes Santana push the thought from her mind, berating herself from ever thinking it in the first place. Family does not turn on each other, no matter how simple it might appear.

Together they lope through the camp once more, ears pricked and cautious, eyeing each soldier suspiciously as they walk by. They have heard their orders and chatter excitedly amongst themselves in a meld of tongues, accents and inflections invading the camp until one cannot distinguish any one language from another. They duck into the battle-tent, raising themselves to their hind legs, straining for the parchment they require that hovers tauntingly out of reach. Even after a rather impressive jump it remains where it is, and they let out a rather human huff of annoyance. Height seemed like such a trivial thing until now (Brittany towers over her on good days; Santana's grown to accept it).

Just before they deem it hopeless they sense a small shuffle by the entrance to the tent; standing in the shadow of the doorway is a child, no more than twelve winters, his face cold and blushed from the wind. His thick seal-hide coat betrays his heritage—though his skin is not yet frozen and cracked like those of his grandfathers, his horn-handled knife and fur boots tells his story of living by the sea that freezes and the sky that unravels. Santana had nearly forgotten the Sami, split in two by their allegiances.

His eyes flicker to the parchment and back to them, debating. Ever so slowly he enters the tent, cautious, ready to spring back at the slightest hint of aggression. When none is found does he kneel down, taking their head in his hands and tilting it up to peer deep into their eyes.

He must like what he sees, for he straightens up and hands them the scroll.

They stare at it for a moment, glancing between it and the boy, who smiles and leans forward to whisper to them.

"You have good eyes, spirit-walker," he says in his fractured Norse, petting their ears fondly before allowing them to gingerly take it in their jaws, the parchment fragile under their strong teeth. They whine happily and rub their head against his side in thanks before creeping out again, slinking along the edges of the camp in an effort to reach the forests beyond.

So, so close to their goal, they grow confident and increase their pace, nearly hitting the bush before a hand grasps them by the scruff and tumbles them backwards. In their confusion they let go of the parchment which unravels slightly, the smallest sliver of its plans peeking outwards. The person that had grabbed them stares down at it, not understanding its meaning but knowing all too well its significance.

_Stupid_, Santana berates herself, pulling back their lips to expose their wicked teeth, _you should have been more careful._

Their prize stands between them; the man cautiously pulls his seax from his belt and goes for it, only to be driven back by their snapping and snarling. They circle each other warily, feinting, never breaking eye-contact until her opponent realizes that he's playing a game of tag with a dog. With a deep breath he reaches for the parchment; they lunge, but not at the hand that's reaching for their goal. Instead, they sink their teeth into his sword-arm.

_Humans taste sweet_, is the first thought Santana has before she is dizzied by his heavy-handed blow to their skull. Still they hang on, jaws digging into flesh and tendon, while the man yells and strikes them time after time, shaking furiously but only managing to imbed their teeth deeper into his forearm. Eventually his shouts are heard and only then do they disengage, hastily snatching up the scroll in their mouth and sprinting for the trees.

A whining sound passes their ear and an arrow thuds heavily into the dirt beside their paws; another comes later, ripping a gash through their right shoulder. Sandalio yelps in pain in her mind and she feels the agony bloom hot and stinging down into their right paw but they don't stop, pounding at the forest floor until the camp and its hollering is but a distant memory. Still they continue through the night and well into the morning, only stopping when the sting turns into an ache and that ache gives them a limp.

These woods are unfamiliar, the smells and sights wrong. They look around hopefully for any source of recollection but are cruelly denied—so far from the road there is little way to get them back home. Swallowing down the panic, Santana breathes out heavily through their nose, closing their eyes and imagining home.

(Home is Kaupang now, not Botaya. Home is Brittany.)

A slight tug comes in their chest, urging their onwards. Opening their eyes again, they take off at an unsteady but constant pace in the direction that beckons. _For you to find your way there, _she remembers, _and then your way back. _

They follow the pull all through the morning and into the earliest afternoon sun, its weak rays filtering in through the clouds that now grow ominous, waiting to peel apart. Their pace slows to an uneven lope by the time they find the roads again.

_Hurts, mistress,_ Sandalio whimpers in her mind, and Santana sympathizes with a sigh.

_I know, my love. I know._

When the distant haze of Kaupang appears, their shoulder almost buckles in relief. Ignoring the pain do they speed up to an awkward lurching run that spatters blood against the snow, breath coming from their mouth in harsh pants that is muffled by the parchment still possessed. Together they speed through the mountain pass and climb the hillside that leads to Brittany's home, barrelling through the slightly open door and skittering to a stop where they fall head over heels in a heap at her own feet.

Santana re-enters her body in a disoriented rush, gasping and sitting upright, attempting to claw at her mother's hands that still hold her steady. It takes a few moments for her sight to shift eyes, and in those split seconds between, her world is nothing but darkness.

"Breathe, mija," Maria whispers from behind her, rocking her back and forth as she would do when she was but a fussy infant, "you are safe now, breathe." Santana inhales heavily a few times before letting the air escape her lungs in a long rush, fixing her gaze upon Sandalio who pants tiredly on the floor.

"Someone see to him," she demands breathlessly, worming the scroll from his mouth, "he is injured." Eyja carefully rolls him over to tend to his wounds, running her hand soothingly down his back as she coos, soft and gentle, about what a strong, brave boy he was. Styrr and Brittany alike crouch down to her level, Betar hovering uncertainly overhead.

"What did you see, priestess?" Styrr urges, coaxing the scroll from her hand. She closes her eyes for a moment as he unravels it, fishing the memories together where they have fractured.

"They come in a few days," she reveals with a nervous swallow, "he sent the orders to march last night, but the snow is heavy and might slow them down. They are only half a summer's daywalk from here."

"Half a daywalk?" Brittany exclaims in surprise. "That's almost the time it takes for Noach to fix his hair."

Despite the circumstances Santana lets out an amused snort, oblivious to the tired smile Brittany cracks at the sound. There may be time for wallowing and grieving, but it is not now.

"So that means we have perhaps triple that time," Styrr muses, pinning the parchment at both ends and running his eyes over the pictures. Sandalio's saliva has wiped away some of the pink, but most of it remains clear. "Not long, and certainly not long enough to mount a proper defence."

Santana scowls. "Why do you care? The more death for your Master the better."

"I thought we were over this, priestess," he drones. "I do not particularly wish to perish in such a miserable frozen wasteland. The only way for me to avoid such an unappealing fate is to help; a foreign concept, I'm sure."

Too tired to argue, she simply rolls her eyes. "Your god is not so powerful, then, allowing you to die."

He shrugs. "We are all expendable in the end. Even great leaders," he cuts his eyes to Betar, "are as vulnerable as animals that bleed on the floor when it comes to the whim of the gods."

"If the both of you are done your squabbling," Yngvarr says gruffly, "we should be forming a plan so that they don't catch us with our heads up our arses this time around."

Those able bend over the map, Santana rewriting the damage Sandalio's saliva has caused. She points out the path likely to be taken and the places now blocked because of the winter, or perhaps those that have opened. Yngvarr will lead a team of burly men to block the small passes that weave their way between the mountains with boulders dragged by their aurochs and oxen, the frozen river broken to prevent crossing. Sentries with their bows and dogs will scatter themselves and watch for the enemy that moves ever so swiftly across the snowy roads.

Yet, there is a fundamental flaw. Even if all other passageways are blocked into Kaupang and the sea is too treacherous for such a journey, the main pass remains wide open. The mountains are steep, yes, but the valley between them is not. Such a large army would have no trouble marching inside and wrecking havoc over the villagers who have nowhere to go.

Brittany notices first, frowning and tapping at the pass. "What do we do about the main entrance? It is much too big to block here."

"Could the jotnar carve boulders from the earth and place them?" Betar asks, but it is a false hope. Brittany shakes their head.

"They are strong, but not gods. The two of them are not enough."

"Hide archers along the mountainside?" Maria offers, squinting at the crudely drawn lines. "They could rain arrows down as they march through."

"It would be a distraction," Yngvarr disagrees, "but not a halting motion. We need something that would knock them flat on their backs and scatter them into staying outside until Haraldr and his army comes."

"Speaking of which," Eyja interrupts from where she is still tending Sandalio's wound, "has anyone sent a runner out to contact him? It will be a moon before he is anywhere near Kaupang if we leave it."

The room looks about uncertainly until Styrr shrugs. "Make the centaurs do it," he offers, "they are swifter than a normal horse and slightly more intelligent."

Santana smirks in agreement. "Nikostratos will have a fit." She stands on wobbly legs to make her way out of the room, needing to clear her head for such an endeavour. Speaking to Brittany across such distances is one thing, but another? Brittany follows her silently out of the room and they are alone amongst the skeletal trees and blanketed snow, the hazy halo of the smouldering town a backdrop that lingers in the back of their throats and the corners of their eyes.

Away from the prodding eyes of the others, Santana turns to Brittany, taking her limp hand gingerly. "How are you doing?" she asks softly, worriedly looking over the exhausted set of her lover's features. "I am sorry I had to leave for so long, I would have stayed if I could."

Brittany smiles and kisses her knuckles thankfully. "I will mourn properly after the battle is done," she sighs sadly, swallowing down the familiar tug of grief. "For now, we need to stay focused. He would have wanted that for me."

Santana nods in agreement and closes her eyes, using Brittany as an anchor as she throws her consciousness outwards, towards the sprawling treeline. Her soul, already loose from its lengthy travelling, goes without complaint, fluidly leaving her body standing motionless as her mind soars above the mountains and seeks out the familiar boom of an ancient heart.

She feels Rory's father first, the druid, attempting to heal the lands that have become tainted and weak with corruption. His despair for his forests as they crumble about them speak of an agony she has rarely known, and so she continues onwards, pushing past the boundaries where her reach might grow hazy and tracing the pass that Hypotas had taken them. All at once does she come upon the Mother-Tree, its roots still massive and sturdy, charms twinkling from every branch. The lifeblood of the centaurs flow within its bark and in it she hears her wizened mentor as vividly as if she was beside them, whispering secrets.

_Sophias?_ she calls tentatively, smiling back in her own body when the centaur's attention is drawn in her direction.

_Santana, is that you?_ she asks in return, surprised. _Where are you, my child?_

_In Kaupang. I have a favor to ask of you._

It feels like Sophias holds her tongue for a moment before she feels the agreement, what could constitute as a nodding of the head. _Of course. What is it you require?_

_ We were attacked last morn. Harald's army comes and we are ill-prepared. I ask your people to send word to the king so that retaliation is swift and unkind._

The gravity of the situation is all that is required to feel Sophias and her anger, bubbling hot and scorned. _They attacked you like bats in the night? Very well, we will deliver this message. How will you defend yourselves until then?_

Santana swallows slightly. _To be perfectly honest? I have no idea. It is very possible we will not be able to stop them in time. _

_I am sure you will, my child. Be safe; we will do what we can._

The connection wavers and snaps, throwing Santana's mind back across the land and into her own body. She sways for a moment before regaining her bearings, shaking her head about in an effort to rid herself of the motion-sickness that soul-travelling always brings.

"It is done," she rubs at the bridge of her nose tiredly, "they go to Harald now. It should be a half moon before they can be expected to arrive."

Brittany grimaces. "There is too much time unaccounted for." But Santana shrugs, stepping back into the room.

"It is all we have."

When they settle down again the adults seem to have come up with some sort of plan, muttering amongst themselves and tracing their fingers down the faint lines of the mountainsides with much head nodding interspersed between. Santana raises an eyebrow.

"Are you all done whispering like demons?"

They look up at her and she frowns at the devious glint in her mother's eye.

"What?" she asks warily, looking about them. "What happened?"

Styrr smirks. "You will see."

* * *

><p>Whatever she is supposed to be seeing, it doesn't happen that day. Instead Yngvarr starts immediately on blocking the entryways, commandeering the burliest men he could find to help. His white hair shines like sun-glazed snow as they trundle oxen behind them, cutting paths in the frosted ground, using ropes and boards to heave and uproot massive boulders from their sitting places and roll them onto the carts. The process repeats until a rather impressive barrier is created, impenetrable to all except the giants who can scale them with their fingers creating holds of jagged ice to clamp onto. Maria delivers the finishing touch, a boulder the size of Toppurinn rooted from the ground by her magic and placed square in the center where it stands, a challenge to any who approach it.<p>

In the village, cleanup continues. Those too injured to be of any use remain in the sick-houses, while the ones burnt but not crippled are sent to the women and children to tend to the food or the weaving, their bodies bound in lavender bandages as they do what they can. Burnt husks are knocked down and temporary shelters raised in their wake. A precious few with abilities in blacksmithing repair what they can, but without a forge the process is difficult, tedious, and ineffective. If a sword breaks, it will remain broken.

They burn the dead. Brittany watches stoically as Santana raises her hands and lights the massive pyre that sends their souls off to the branches of Yggdrasil; those that have not died in battle will not meet Freya or Odinn this morn, but perhaps their own version of beauty—Brittany hopes that Anvindr finds Brokkr, the blacksmith who forged Thor's mighty hammer, thought of as the most skilled worker in all nine worlds. She does not sob, as he would not want her to; instead, allowing her tears to roll silently down her cheeks, she vows vengeance on the people who took him away so soon.

(He was supposed to die in battle—she would prop him up and they would charge for the last time until a sword pierced his belly and he was swept off to Valhalla, free of his mortal pains. It will never happen now, just as many things will cease to pass.)

Sophias tells her that Quinn has made contact with Haraldr, her cheeks flushed red from the cold, and his people begin their descent to Kaupang. Snow falls in thick droves, their swollen girth finally bursting outwards, and it will take them half a moon to reach the town where their invisible enemy marches forever onwards. Santana feels their presence in the way that she feels the Old One; distant and indistinct but still _there_, waiting, watching and wanting for something that is just beyond their reach. Kaupang begins to fell trees from the earth to be erected into great pointed stakes at the village entrance once the time comes and sentries stand guard, spears and torches at hand, forever peering into the gloom in search of danger.

They find it three nights later.

The marching of feet and great, reaching flames sends the nearby guard crying out in the night, cupping his hands to his mouth and howling for the town to raise itself from its uneasy slumber. All at once the villagers awake, gripping their weapons and armour, rubbing at their eyes as their neighbours emerge from their homes. Ever so slowly Kaupang comes alive, and in the reflection of their fires are the grim faces of its leaders ready to face their death.

Brittany stands motionless at the yawning entrance to the passageway, watching as pinpricks of light in the distance blink and waver as they make their slow procession towards the town. She is no fool—she knows they are greatly outnumbered and outmatched, a garrison against an army. The boom of her heart is calm but she is reminded of the fragility that steady thump brings, how easily a spear or a sword can silence it. She runs her fingers delicately across the blade of her axe; many will be dead come morning.

Santana steps up next to her and joins in watching the exodus come. In perhaps an hour they will be close enough to see the whites of their eyes and they will spill across these hills like the plague, ripping and tearing in their wake. They have giants, that is true, they have magic and fire and darkness, but it is just not enough.

"My mother has something planned," Santana says softly, not wanting to break the aura of concentration around her lover. "She keeps talking with Eyja and Styrr in lowered voices."

Brittany raises an eyebrow but doesn't move her eyes from those bobbing lights that sway in and out of her vision. "Styrr? They must be desperate."

Santana shrugs, wordlessly taking her hand and intertwining their fingers. "The situation is rather dire, you must admit."

Brittany tilts her head slightly, looking for the first time at Santana. While her face is as drawn as the rest, tight with worry and fatigue, she does not wear the mask of a woman come to meet her end. "You do not seem terribly worried, though." Brittany muses, sighing as she casts her eyes to the sky and offers a quick prayer to Odinn. "Is there something that you know?"

"More of a feeling," Santana divulges. "This... it does not feel like the end. Is that strange? We could have died so many times during our journeys, and I felt it so, but... not here. It is more like a beginning." At Brittany's inquisitive stare, she shrugs it off with a smirk. "Perhaps we will win with the sheer force of our will to live. Goddess knows it's saved us before."

Brittany snorts, shaking her head in disbelief. "Too stubborn to die... that would be you. Odinn himself could try to cast you down but you'd spit on him and get right back up."

Santana grins slyly. "That old coot has nothing on me. I see his ravens following us all day."

The both of them turn to the nearest tree where those two ravens that have taken up home in the town peer down at them with their beady eyes, emitting a curious croak every so often. Brittany watches them doubtfully, raising both her brows when they hop closer. "Do you think?" she asks incredulously, eyeing the animals.

Santana hums in agreement. "A thought and a memory."

Footsteps crackle behind them and the two turn in time to see Maria stepping out of the gloom, her cloak wrapped tight around herself and her blue magic lighting the way. Behind her comes Eyja, dwarfed in her skirts, and Styrr, impassive to the bitter wind whipping his hair back from his eyes. In the sky that howls with snow it is so bright that Santana is able to see the individual braids scattered about in her mother's hair. How fitting that the gods would choose tonight to see their enemies in the dark.

"What are you two doing up here?" Maria asks, looking out to the lights that have begun to approach. "Betar would have work for you."

Santana shrugs, playing with the charms of her staff. "Contemplating death, scorning gods. Things we do in our spare time."

Brittany rolls her eyes and nudges her hip, silently telling her to behave.

"We think we have found a way to scrounge us enough time until Haraldr appears," Maria states, ignoring her remarks, "but we need your help, Santana."

Santana eyes the couple suspiciously. "What kind of help?" she demands, nervously clenching her fists. "Is that what you were muttering about earlier?"

"We were flaying the kinks in the plan," Styrr reveals. "It is loose at best, but better than anything those imbeciles in town have come up with. We might end up saving their sorry hides come morning."

Santana sighs, running her hand through her thick hair. "What choice do I have, truly? If this doesn't work, we will all be draugar by the day's end."

Brittany crinkles her nose in disgust. "Can't we just be corpses? I want to stay down when I die."

"No one will die today," Maria reassures, only to relent, "well, they will, but not us."

"Care to tell me what this plan entails, or are you going to keep it a surprise?" Santana asks sarcastically, but a harsh croak from the ravens overhead cut her next words. They all glance up to where the excitement is in earnest, the shapes of men filtering in from the gloom. Santana swallows nervously without thinking about it, her grip on Brittany's hand crushing.

(Though she tries not to show it, Brittany wishes death would come knocking another day. There is so much more to do before they find Valhalla together.)

Yet Styrr seems... excited, almost, if such a term could apply to him. He steps up closer to the mountain passage, outstretching his left hand backwards with a smirk. "Take my hand, priestess," he asks of Santana, who recoils and steps away.

"Why?" she demands suspiciously, narrowing her eyes at him. Out of the corner of her vision she sees her mother take position, too, her right hand free where it also stretches outwards. She and Brittany share a cautious glance.

"Because the link cannot be completed without all of us," he says in exasperation, beckoning her. "I am sure you can go without touching Bretagne for a few seconds, and we seem to be running on limited time."

It is with hesitance that she grabs his hand, loosely clasping palms; his skin is frozen, like the ice that forms upon the tree branches, and she stifles a gasp as she yanks away too late, his grip trapping her. "No time for that," he grunts, now able to hear the stomping of the army's feet as it steadily moves through the pass. Maria grabs her other hand, forcing her hold from Brittany, and the connection is an electric shock that passes through the depths of her—she gasps and resists the urge to shudder at so many connections coursing through her at once, fighting for dominance. They remain motionless for a few precious moments and Santana regains enough of her mind to frown, looking to her mother whose eyes have begun to pulse a gentle blue.

"Are we going to do something or just stand around holding hands?" she enquires dryly, sparing a glance to Harald's forces who continue to advance. Styrr lets out a hollow breath of a laugh, his free hand twining over and over around tendrils of his Master's shadow.

"We must wait until as many of them are in the pass as possible," he says lowly, his mouth twisting into a cruel smirk. She eyes the tops of the mountains and their sheer faces—an idea begins to form, only blooming when she feels their collective thought crawl along the stone walls, probing for weaknesses and pitfalls.

When she can see the faintest outline of the nearest man's beard, the world splits in two.

They do not give the word, but it is a sudden sense of urgency that causes her to dredge up the white dragon that keeps a home in her chest, pulling it from slumber and sending it shooting into the sky. Her hands are tied so it comes from her mouth in a great bolt of light, searing a hole through the fabric of the sky and stars, knocking her back a pace if not for Brittany's strong hands keeping her upright. Never has she felt the strength like she does now, the power of the others only feeding into herself until they collide with each other and fuse, melting together to form something _else_ entirely.

Blue, white, and black burn away the night as they scream through the pass, disintegrating bodies in their wake and leaving nothing but ash. There is a roaring in her ears as the light grows and swells until she is bloated with it, stretched at the seams, bursting with life and fire and _power_ as her mother issues forth a command that sends their magic scattering, crashing into the walls of the mountain pass. Rock is turned to dust and great outcrops topple into the valley, the screams of the fallen men cut from her ears as the stone lands on them and they are silenced; her dragon is given their voices as great cracks split the earth and from it her fire bursts forth, a howling banshee, a god with no name. Brittany buries her head into Santana's shoulder to escape the burning light.

Horses scream and men cry and earth groans as the very mountains themselves begin to topple, their guard finally over as they do this one last act of protection for their people who have so loved and revered them. Great chunks of rock fall as their power carves it from the pass, reaching inwards into the depths of the great peaks to pull their cores from their belly and let their standings crumble. It is an explosion that shakes the foundations they stand upon, a plethora of colour crushing worlds to rubble, the three burying their enemies in such a thick layer of rock that there will be no escape for the trapped nor travel for the free. The connection between them bloats with such force and for a fleeting moment the sky is as light as a midsummer's day.

As the dust settles and the mountains settle upon their new ground, the light and colour dims to a faint glow. One by one their flame extinguishes; Maria first, dropping to the ground, followed by Santana, and finally Styrr. Santana rests her forehead on the ground, dimly aware of her mother sprawled out beside her and Styrr bent over, his hands resting heavily on his knees.

Brittany is beside her, staring in awe at what used to be eternal. "You did it," she whispers reverently, "you can move mountains, Santana. Can you burn worlds, too?"

Perhaps the more relevant question, she thinks, as she peers up through her damp hair and sees the white fires caught alight upon the trapped flesh of men, should be _what can't she do_?


	24. Chapter 24

**A/N: (FFnet has been dumb and might not have informed you there was another chapter a little while ago. Do look back and see if you've missed it.)**

Well, everybody, it's finally here. This is the Thing - the first scene that I ever thought of, and the inspiration that spawned Battlesong in the first place. Though this isn't the end of the story (by far), I just want to take a moment to thank all of you for sticking it out this long. I know it's been a long time since I uploaded the first chapter and I've made some mistakes along the way, but I'm proud of how far we've come. This chapter, specifically, makes me happy about all the bumps and bruises we've endured. I want to thank my beta, LeMasquerade, for doing an impeccable job as always to help me work out the specifics; SwingingCloud, for... pretty much nothing recently (thanks a lot) but yay anyway, and now as the addition to the group, Perfectly Censored for being patient and withstanding my endless taunting. I hope you enjoy the chapter as much as I do... and if you have any doubts by the end? Just trust me. Have I ever led you wrong? (Don't answer that.)

Also, a very special thanks to my grumpy old man, who helped make this chapter into everything it could be.

(The song Santana sings is called Solringen by Wardruna, and is a piece of art. I highly recommend you listen to it during the battle to get a feel for what's going on.)

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><p><strong>Chapter 24<strong>

**love of mine someday you will die**

**but I'll be close behind—I'll follow you into the dark**

**November 22****nd**

As of that day, Kaupang is a town under siege.

Strangely, from what little Brittany has heard of sieges that toppled the greatest citadels to the south, it bears little resemblance. There are no corpses catapulted into their homes, no distant flames of a sitting army, no circling in the sea. The land has turned eerily silent with the descent of the mountains, and Brittany always finds herself disoriented, expecting to see their towering profiles before she spies the sheer layer of rubble that is all that remains of the mighty guardians.

When they had crumbled they left great pockets in their wake—the first few unlucky souls attempting to go save the buried had fallen through themselves, crashing into rocks and becoming more casualties. From what little the scouts can see, Harald's forces are much more careful now, picking their way gingerly through the pitfalls to find their vanished allies.

Though a sliver of their former selves remain, the remnants of the tall mountains slump inwards, leaning against one another in a ghost of what they used to be. Between and under them are piles and piles of stone that have been blasted off from the assault and block the pass; it would take weeks to forge a path in which time archers could pick off the enemy one by one, vultures circling the weak. Harald has seemed to realize this too, and apart from rescue missions to find both the dead and the living, the army has remained oddly silent. The atmosphere has dissolved into a tense waiting game, but Kaupang is not taking this time for granted.

Women sit amongst each other in great rows as they prepare the men for battle; some are mending clothing, some tending food, but most are creating arrows—hoards of them, all secured into place by their skilled hands. The shaft of the arrow is given goose fletching before the head of the arrow is secured, wrapped in animal sinew and bound tight, placed on the ever increasing pile that grows in the center of the room. They chatter as they work, unusually bright, seemingly unfazed by the mountains that have crumbled at their feet.

The men, however, are a different story.

They whisper between themselves when they think Brittany can't hear about how magic is not a fitting weapon for a warrior, that they should have met the army head-on and died in battle. Bows, too, are seen as cowardly and they scorn the massive quantity of arrows begin produced. She doesn't think they quite understand the sheer magnitude of the forces to come. If Kaupang falls, so too does all of Nor Veg.

As it stands, she helps the able-bodied farmers prepare their defenses. The muscles in her arms ripple in exertion as she swings the wood-axe into the ash tree time and time again, the rhythmic thump of the impact split by the echoing sound of her partner doing the same. After an endless tunnel of chopping the tree groans in pain and sways on the spot, crashing to the ground as they call out warning. Wiping her brow, she turns with a grin to Noach, who rests panting with his hands on his knees.

"Regretting offering your aid yet?" she teases, and though he does not understand much, he still gives her a face and waves her off. They have been felling trees from dawn in an effort to prepare any sort of defense, fire-hardened logs they will drive into the ground, capped with a vicious point. Basic, perhaps, but effective none the less. Her arms burn, but she refuses to stop lest they send her off to make arrows with the rest of the women—she was never good with that, her fingers always slipping on the knots.

_You would make a useless wife,_ Mikhail laughed one time as she attempted to stitch her own clothing. _That is the point,_ she replied seriously, cursing when she pricked her finger yet again.

(Luckily, Santana is much better at these things than her.)

Noach whistles and a farmer comes by with a horse to drag the log off to be stripped, pulling it through the snow and turning the forest floor to mush. It has reached their shins now and Brittany feels the cold through her thick woollen trousers, seeping in through the linen wraps that bind all the excess material to her legs.

She offers her water-skin and he drinks from it gratefully, leaning against a spindly birch tree as they take a break. The forest is alive with the sound of metal striking wood, men barking commands and the vicious crackling of the fire as the logs are fed through to strengthen them. To think they could have had so much more time... what is Harald thinking, marching in the winter?

Noach stiffens a moment before she hears the crunching footsteps, followed by a looming shadow that casts over one side of her face. She frowns and looks up, resisting the urge to growl as the lumbering giant comes into view.

"You should be inside with the rest of the women. It is cold out here." Finngeirr surveys the stumps around them and shakes his head. "Or are you still pretending to be a man?"

Her friend makes to move forward but she pins him with a warning glare, stepping away from the tall boy instead and crossing her arms.

"You have no bearing over what I do," she responds neutrally, hand tightening around the haft of her wood-axe.

"Not yet," he says, an impatient sigh escaping his lips and steaming into the sky, "but when this war is over, Piersson? You will be."

"I will never be yours."

He turns on her, fingers balling into fists at his side and squeezing till the leather gloves strain like over filled sausages. "You will be—you _have_ to be. The elders might let you pretend to be some kind of valkyrja, but you are a woman... and like it or not, you are my woman."

"I am _a_ woman," she says carefully, tasting each word for a misstep, so similar to dancing on a spear-tip lest she trigger his anger, "but I will ever only be my own woman. If I can fight and sing and drink as well as any man, you have no right to say what is not my place."

Blood pools in his cheeks, a flush creeping down his collar. His words come almost too fast, hissed rather than spoken. "You keep pretending to be a man and you will die. You are an adult now, like me, and we have responsibilities. Let me fight for you as it should be." Speckles of spittle freeze on his lips as he glares her down. "Your whole life you have always brought shame on your name, never obeying or accepting your place. If you got it into that thick head of yours that you were a bird, you'd fling yourself out of a tree, wouldn't you, stupid, stubborn girl? For once in your life, be a woman and let the men fight and die to keep you safe."

"Do you think Harald would be gentle with me because I was born without a cock? If we fail on the battlefield the women would have more to lose."

A crack splits the air, causing the rhythmic thock of axe in wood to stop, and blood rushes to Brittany's face in the outline of a hand—her skin flames, steaming in the cold air and a trickle of blood leaks from the corner of her mouth. Finngeirr stares in shock for a moment, before Noach throws himself forward and shoves him hard, spewing profanities in his own tongue as the two fall to the ground with a loud grunt. The workers pause and turn to the source of the conflict; the boy scrambles up, drawing his sword from his belt with a snarl. Noach hefts his wood-axe in return, taunting him obviously and without care.

"Stop it!" Brittany shoves her way between them and bravely stares down the point of the sword levelled at her. "A war is not the time to fight between ourselves! Harald will win and there will be no chance for a... wedding," she spits the word out like filth, "because we will all be dead. Is that what you want?"

Finngeirr, still shaken, turns on Brittany with renewed fury. "You will never come to me like you should after the fighting is done, not with your Iberian whore by your side. I should have gutted her when she first came to this village—she is cursed, and you are the only one who doesn't see it."

She narrows her eyes in warning. "Do you want me to find Santana so you can call her that to her face?"

He falters slightly. "She does not scare me."

"No? She did something to you while I was gone, Finngeirr. She told me. You know what happens when she gets angry, remember?" Her voice lowers. "People burn."

His sword sheathes with a wavering hiss and he bares his teeth in agitation, though she can see the nervous sweat begin to bead upon his brow. "She will get what she deserves at the hands of Harald's men, and only Loki will weep to see her dead."

"I could castrate you for what you just did to me," Brittany says lowly, spitting blood into the snow, "do not waste my kindness. A swollen eye from a friend's fist is a coward's price."

Finngeirr lets out a frustrated sound before turning on his heel and swiftly departing for the village, a thin trickle of blood from the split caused by Noach's fist dotting the snow. She wipes at her lip with a grimace before she feels a large hand touch her jaw—Noach turns her head towards him and presses a ripped scrap of his shirt to her mouth, holding it there until she uses it on her own.

"You understand more than you let on, don't you?" she asks in amusement through the cloth; he shrugs sheepishly and runs his hand over the strip of hair on his head.

"I not like him," he replies, "he snake. Coward."

Brittany hums her agreement, looking east to where he had disappeared. As a child he was just a foolish, incompetent boy who was always in a body a size too big, but with Anvindr's injury his attentions had been placed more firmly upon her. At the beginning her friend had tried to ward him away—even crippled, the blacksmith always tried to be her white knight...

She swallows hard, spitting once more on the ground before tucking Noach's shirt piece into her belt. "Come on," she says roughly, hefting her axe with a sudden yank, "we have more trees to fell." He watches her worriedly for a moment, but when she says nothing, with the stubborn set of her jaw, he simply sighs and begins the rhythm again.

As they return to their tasks so too do the other men, shaking their head before taking up their axes. It is a grave error to strike a woman, no matter how impertinent she may be, even though Brittany has always been a strange exception. (Still, the dishonour of this weighs heavily upon Finngeirr's shoulders.)

Their day is a torturous repetition of chopping and calling and stripping and burning until the trees around Kaupang have thinned and the horses have piled the logs into one massive pile in the center. There isn't enough—there might never be enough—but it is a start as the others dig holes in the ground to place the stakes and ward away incoming warriors.

"When are you going back to Iberia?" Brittany asks with a grunt, rearing back for another strike as Noach takes his swing.

"Don't know," he replies breathlessly, "seas strange. Too rough. Hard travel."

Ever since the attack the waters have begun to roil, seething with the blood spilt that night. They have not calmed for days, and the result is fishermen stranded to close waters where their hauls are minimal—so late in the fall, their catches are already meager. It seems they will have to rely on what they have now and little else.

"Have you heard word of the state of Harald's other armies to the south?"

Noach shakes his head, calling out a warning as another tree wavers and tumbles to the ground. "Much fighting... many dead. Dangerous."

Brittany arches a brow. "And it is not here?"

"I like here," he responds. "People friendly. In Iberia, always watch behind you."

The warrior sighs, marking another tree. "Perhaps, but I still want to see it. Santana speaks fondly of her town even if she wants to pretend she disliked it."

"You go to Iberia?" He asks curiously, rearing back for a strike. "No marriage?"

Brittany grimaces. "If you think I would marry him, you must be touched in the head."

As she goes to answer his swing, a murmur from the workers halts her chop. She glances up curiously at the whispering men that have stopped to stare at a couple of figures leisurely making their way through the snow, carelessly stepping over logs and through thick branches. Brittany narrows her eyes—strangers. How did they get through?

"'Lo, Piersson!" One of them calls and she hefts her wood-axe onto her shoulder, stepping forward a few paces so she can see them more clearly. A band of twelve, perhaps more; burly faced warriors with beards of brown and red and brightest blond, their skin ruddy from the cold. But what draws her attention more than anything are the furry pelts they wear draped across their bodies—the one that greeted her has the pelt of brother-bear over his shoulders, its snarling maw seated firmly atop his head.

"Who are you?" she answers back, wiping the sweat from her brow. Noach steps behind her protectively, but he only draws eye-level with her. Still, it's a nice gesture.

He stops before her and does a mock-bow, the shine of his teeth almost feral against the snow. "I am Björk, my friend, and I've come to offer our assistance."

She narrows her eyes and scans down his frame, flitting her gaze to his allies before nodding slightly. "You are berserkir, aren't you?"

He grins again, impressed. "Do we make such an impression?"

"Something like that," she mumbles, sinking her axe into the injured tree where it stays. "You must talk to my father first. I will bring you there."

Brittany rubs her eyes wearily as she beckons them to her and casts her mind to find Santana's, still occupied with the wounded in one of the many different longhouses.

_I need you to bring my grandfather to where my father is staying. We have stranger berserkir that wish to fight for him. _

_Berserkir? _Santana responds; in her mind's eye Brittany sees her stop with furrowed brows, head tilting to the sky as she always does when she talks with the beyond.

_ I will explain later. Ask him to gather some warriors for when we arrive._

They march in silence for a few moments before Björk pulls up next to her, discreetly eyeing the weapons around her belt and the strong muscles in her arms, tense from a day of manual labour. She feels his stare but simply grits her teeth and carries on, the throb of her cheek an insistent reminder.

"You still play warrior, then?" he asks curiously, his eyes sweeping once down her frame. "I remember when you were just a babe at the _þing _and your father was scorned for letting you wave about a wooden sword, but when you near broke a fellow's knee they started to listen."

Brittany remembers the þing vaguely, a distant memory that swims in half-truths. The eyes upon her that day were never something she could erase entirely from her thoughts, not even as she began to prove herself. "I do not remember you there," she says shortly, resting her hand upon her axe.

"Of course not," he chuckles, "you were... four winters? Five? Too young regardless. How your father turned to the position of jarl after that disgrace I'll never understand."

Her eyes flash dangerously and she turns to him, her feet crackling in the snow. "My father is jarl because he has lead Kaupang into glory and wealth, nothing else. That is more than can be said about a group of berserkir that wander about the countryside and kill their friends like savage dogs."

"Don't provoke the hound that fights for you, girl, lest he bite."

They emerge from the forests and make their quick way through town, sidestepping some charred remnants that have yet to be cleared. Björk whistles lowly and runs his hand across one of the husks, rubbing his fingers together as the ruined wood comes away in his hand. "What happened?" he asks with brows raised, chancing a glance into the sick-house where the wounded writhe with their blistering wounds.

"Harald happened," Brittany mutters, sweeping through the entrance of the longhouse Betar temporarily occupies.

Those she had asked for are gathered around the cheery flame, peering with suspicious eyes at the strangers that fill the shelter. Maria and Santana stand together cautiously, eyeing the others warily, their staves glittering in the firelight. Her grandfather rises and beckons her to his side, pressing her backwards until his great hand splays itself cautiously over her hip.

"I thought you and your band had gone to Jorvik," Yngvarr rumbles. "What might a little bear be doing here?"

Björk smirks, crossing his arms and letting the great claws on his pelt clack together. "When I heard my kingdom was in danger, I couldn't resist. Aren't you happy to see us?"

"As happy as I am to see a rabid dog," Betar cuts in, stepping beside his father-in-law. "Last you were here you caused many problems. Why would I open our town to you again and allow you to take our stores and rape our women?"

Santana, sidled beside Brittany, tenses and grips at her lover's wrist. The warrior's grim expression does little to assuage her doubts.

"Come now, Betar, that was many moons ago." Björk splays out his hands in a placating gesture. "Me and the boys spent a long time in Jorvik... we're better now. Twelve winters is a long time to hold a grudge."

Laughter of agreement from his band as they jostle him around, and Björk smiles roguishly at the jarl. His misfit charm is undeniable, long matted hair falling about his face, but there is a certain edge to his grin that unsettles Brittany's nerves. "You know we could help you," he continues, "but you were always too proud to take any aid."

"Is that what you called it when you slaughtered women and their children in their beds?" Betar growls angrily, face turning red. "You call raping _my_ people and then desecrating their corpses help? You disgust me!"

Yet Björk's expression barely flickers, his shoulders rising into a shrug. "The violence is part of our affliction, my friend. It can't be helped."

"I wouldn't want to be a friend of a berserkr," Brittany mutters discreetly to Santana. "They kill their allies when they fly into their rages. Sometimes they even turn into animals."

"It can be helped, you just choose not to restrain it." Styrr's bored voice floats through the room, its monotone drawl catching the band's attention. They snarl and grumble like wild animals as he emerges from the shadows lurking about the edges of the room, his ice-blue eyes glittering faintly in the candlelight. He looks unearthly—a ghost in the waking world.

"What would you know about fighting, seið-mann?" Björk sneers. "All the honour you used to have disappeared when you committed yourself to taking up the ass like a woman. Maybe they cut off your cock, too?"

Styrr, ever unbothered, simply raises a blond brow. "How original. I cower in shame."

One of the berserkir peers at him with a squint, his thick black brows scrunching together until it reminds Brittany of an ugly caterpillar. "Why's a place like Kaupang got such a coward talkin' for them? I'd put him flat on his ass."

"Do you have any better ideas?" Yngvarr challenges, smirking as he falls silent. "No? How surprising."

"Berserkir are never the smartest creatures, shameful things," Styrr agrees, crossing his arms. "But they could be of use."

As much as it pains Santana to admit, Styrr has a brilliant mind for tactics. He finds holes in the enemy that no one else bothers to look for, delivering to them victory when they thought to be served defeat.

"It is impossible to have them on the front lines, as they would turn on us the minute we attacked. The issue with killing their friends and all that," Styrr waves his hand in the air, brushing it off, "but if we placed them at the rear? A dozen screaming beasts dressed in animal skins would break these soft southern warriors."

Yngvarr nods slowly, his eyes travelling over the group. "How would they get to the rear?"

Styrr shrugs. "The giants could throw them. Half of them might die, but it is not much of a life wasted."

"We need a better plan," Brittany interjects. "Throwing men into a crowd of soldiers to be ripped to shreds is no way to win the war."

"These are not men," Styrr mutters under his breath, but she shakes him off.

"Do we have an agreement, then?" Björk asks, watching Styrr roll his eyes from afar.

Betar blows out a heavy breath of air but agrees regardless, clasping his proffered forearm in a vice grip. "You are allowed to stay here until the battle is over. But let it be known that if you cause any trouble..."

"You will have my head, I know," he replies disinterestedly, adjusting his belt. "I will see you tonight at the feast I'm sure you're having, old friend." The assembly dissolves and one by one they make to go, shouldering out of the longhouse with hoots of triumph, jostling each other and falling into the dirty snow. Villagers watch them with scarcely concealed disgust as they wrestle on the damp ground, taking great care to keep a wide berth. Björk, the last to leave, drops something from his pouch as he moves his belt again.

Despite her inherent dislike, Brittany still stoops to pick it up and chases after him.

"Björk, wait!" she calls, stopping him in his tracks. His allies hoot and shove him around with obscene gestures of their hips—Brittany steps back a few paces in revulsion, but he waves them away with a hard yet amused stare, coming to rest in front of her.

Without waiting for him to ask, she hastily shoves the little container he'd dropped on the floor into his hand. "Here," she rushes, itching to get away. "You left this."

He glances down at what appears to be a vial, humming in thought for a moment before pressing it back to her chest. "You take it, I have more than one."

Brittany furrows her brow and stares at it, shaking the container to agitate the substance within. "What is it?" she asks curiously, popping out the cork and taking a small sniff, instantly recoiling at the horrible stench that wafts up from inside.

"A potion," Björk informs her her with his head bent forward, almost as if imparting a special secret. "We use it in battle. It makes us even stronger than we already are, like a bear."

Brittany frowns. Such a small thing can do that?

"But it makes the rage come on so quick we can't stop it," Björk adds, "so we have to use it when the time is right."

"I thought the whole point of a berserkr is to do that yourself?"

"Sometimes even the best of us need a little help," he winks, turning around. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be fine. You don't strike me as the type of woman to get angry so easy."

She looks at the vial for a few more moments before she hears crunching footsteps approaching her, arms winding across her hips from behind. Santana lays her head between Brittany's shoulder-blades and squeezes her tight. "What was that?" she asks curiously, eyeing the man's retreating back.

Carefully, Brittany places the vial in her belt pouch. "Nothing. He just wanted to talk."

* * *

><p><strong>December 8<strong>**th****, 912**

After two wretched weeks of waiting, the word comes.

King Haraldr has arrived.

Men and women of all ages are gathered to the town center—even the berserkir stop their whore-mongering long enough to stagger out into the blinding sun. One by one the entirety of Kaupang amass into one spot while their jarl stands tall against the backdrop of the sea, his bronze beard burning in the winter sun. His daughter takes her place by his side, stoic despite the nervous sweat that beads upon her brow.

"My people," Betar calls, his thundering voice rolling over the village streets, "the time for inaction has passed. Our king awaits us just beyond the ruined mountains, and tonight, we will meet him in glorious battle!"

A cheer goes up from the crowd, slighted and furious, the cry of a people seeking vengeance.

"But know that this fight will not be an easy one," the jarl warns. His villagers quiet, their hands heavy on their weapons. "The enemy outnumbers us. Many will die, both this night and the next, and the ones after that. We may fight valiantly and _still _fall. Only the Fates know." His eyes travel over every single one of his people; fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers. He cares for them all. "But the White Christ approaches, and we will meet him with Odinn's cry! Together, as one, we will drive back the enemy or die trying! Kaupang will _not_ simply be another conquest!"

A deafening chant rises from the masses—stomping their feet and banging their weapons against their shields, the people of Kaupang rally together for the enemy. Betar dismisses them for last minute preparations and the village explodes into a frenzy of activity; men finish the last barriers around the town, women work quickly to make spare bandages and meals, children running about carrying bits and pieces to those who would need them. Not a single villager is unoccupied—Maria takes all the spare hands that she can, clearing out barns and holds for the wounded that will undoubtedly come through the garrison walls, great pots of water boiled with herbs to sit aside for bandages and infusions. Brittany directs the boys who will fight with them, demonstrating the proper way to block a swing or a chop, readying them the best she can with such a short amount of time.

Santana, however, is pulled aside.

She starts for a moment but softens as Gynna grips her wrist hard, clasping her hand over her white-knuckled grip and tugging her to a quiet pocket in the chaos. The red rings around her eyes are the only outward sign of her strife, but Santana sees the exhaustion in her face.

"What is it?" Santana whispers, planting her staff in the ground.

Gynna swallows nervously, her fingers trembling. "Reinn has decided to fight with the others," she says urgently, "I cannot convince him otherwise. I want you to keep him safe."

A boy of twelve summers? She knows the situation is dire, but for one to die so young with a sword in hand...

"There will be too many people on the battlefield," Santana murmurs carefully, "I cannot keep track of them all."

_ They will die_, go words unspoken.

"Heal them, then," she pleads, "like you healed me. _Please, _Santana, I know you can."

This is what she had spent so many sleepless nights waiting for, is it not? So many nightmares and so many voices, all whispering and hissing and writhing around each other for her attention. She looks at the thin black lines across her palms that betray her burden until she gives but a brief jerk of a nod. "I will do what I can."

Before Gynna can thank her she is already gone, sweeping off in the direction of the town. She follows the sodden roads to the barn where she had, in dream, raised the priest from the dead. The animals have been moved and all that is left is the vague stench of rot and shit, an unfavourable combination on the best of days. Her eyes roam over a few of the boys that linger about chopping firewood—they start but it is too late to back away, and they slink over cautiously when she beckons them.

"I need this barn cleared out by tonight," she rushes. "The seriously wounded will come here and I will heal them."

One of the boys eyes her dubiously. "Isn't your mother doing that?"

"One of us needs to be fighting at all times," Santana snaps, "and sometimes that will be her. We need to make sure everything is done."

Too intimidated to further argue they set to work, some taking heavy hammers and swinging out the stalls that keep them separated, the others mucking the floors until only a thin layer of grit remains. She nods in approval a few hours later when the job is done, the sun just beginning to peak in the sky; light is short this time of year and the village scrambles to do all they can before night descends. All that remains of the barn is one great empty space, a raised platform in the middle where she will sit.

Once dismissed the boys scamper off and she hikes herself up the small hill, past Brittany's home, where she can hear the distant clanging of metal upon metal. Bunches of younger boys with weapons far too big for their own hands face off against each other, blocking and parrying and swiping, skull-caps slipping down the bridge of their narrow noses. Brittany walks between them, giving encouragement and guidance, readjusting a spear in the hands of one as he strikes.

They all look so small.

Brittany sees her from afar and her smile is tired but sincere; dirt is smudged upon her cheeks as she jogs to her, embracing her hard for a moment before setting her back down on the ground. Santana sees her expression though she tries to hide it, and responds with a sympathetic smile.

"You cannot save them all." Santana begins the conversation long before Brittany wanted it, but she simply nods and runs one hand over her unruly blonde hair.

"I know," she sighs quietly, "but I wish I could. We should have started training them earlier."

"No one knew that war would come from across the sea, my love," she returns softly, stroking her thumb upon the chapped knuckles of Brittany's right hand, "it is not your fault. They have a better chance than they did a half-moon ago."

She spies Reinn in the crowd and her heart stutters uncomfortably for a moment as she imagines laying him to rest in a great pyre with the others. (Too soon, too soon.)

"A small chance is not good enough," Brittany says miserably, but keeps her expression hidden in the crook of Santana's shoulder. "I wish this war would go away."

Santana smiles faintly, running her hand down the strength of her warrior's neck. "Not even the promise of Valhalla excites you?"

She pulls back seriously to lock gazes with the priestess, shaking her head. "I have found Valhalla in you. I don't need a different one."

Santana swallows heavily and presses a tender kiss to Brittany's lips in silent thanks. The others have gone still and quiet at the exchange but she cares little for them and their eyes—the last peaceful moments before the battle are slowly slipping through their fingers. Responsibility is a staggering weight to carry when another only wants you home.

"I need to go see my mother," she murmurs softly, "but I will march with you to battle. Tell your father that all the gravely wounded come to me."

Brittany looks at her quizzically but nods regardless, clinging to her when she makes to go.

She memorizes the softness of her skin just in case.

* * *

><p>Night comes, wolves howl, swords shine. One by one, a long procession of warriors make their way from the town center towards the blocked mountain passes, their mail rustling in the silence and their weapons clinking by their sides. Despite the impending chaos there is a certain eerie calmness that penetrates the ranks—nobody speaks.<p>

The berserkir have split off and march for the southernmost pass that they will take to rush the rear of Harald's army when the time comes—having taken their potion early they resemble wild animals in the skins of men, snarling and snapping at each other with a great muscle tremors and chattering teeth. Maria had painstakingly lifted the stones and boulders that had made both the main and side passes so inaccessible to the enemy, and now all four hundred of Kaupang's warriors make their silent progression into the unknown.

At the front of their forces are the two frost jotnar, their heads held high and proud, their eyes burning in the darkness. Great stones are crushed under their weight as they lead the way for the others, and their glowing bulk is impossible to miss. Sandwiched between them is Betar, his armour catching their reflecting light to make him shine like a hero himself.

Santana and Brittany walk side by side, hands clasped, faces grim. Brittany has spared no expense and clatters along in full mail complete with cap and coif, her axe strapped to her belt and spear clutched heavy in her unoccupied hand. All this chain feels burdensome, but in the chaos of a night attack, a thick guard is a blessing. Santana wears her wolfskin robe, but Thor's pendant rests proudly on her breast alongside her mother's chain, warding away the darkness. Styrr and Yngvarr flank them both, equally as grave.

Unsuspecting of an attack from this angle, Harald had shifted his forces south, moving his scouts from the pass. The king's army, forced to take a detour, come in from almost directly overhead rather than northwest, allowing them to put hills between the two and obscure their sight. All they know is to wait for the signal; a distant bonfire lit upon the distant hill.

The group hunkers down in the miserable cold, not daring to light a fire lest it attract attention. Men huddle into little circles and blow on their hands encased in thick winter gloves, jerking back if their frozen chain touches their skin. Brittany brings herself as close to Santana's tiny flame as she can before she catches her hair on fire. Some of the older men have taken the frightened boys under their arms in a type of solidarity, but she can see how they tremble from fear as much as the wind.

Styrr worms himself into their two-person circle, discreetly putting his hands closer to the flame. Santana scowls but doesn't pull away.

"It is soon time," he drawls, eyeing the shivering masses. Not an impressive sight.

"We should wait for the signal," Brittany interjects, bluntly shoving him out of the way with her hip. He simply pushes his way back to the heat with no sign of irritation.

"I will need Santana for the signal," he argues flatly, rubbing his hands together. "We are already crippled with Maria still in Kaupang and need to be ready."

She had insisted on staying with the women with the thought of the wounded soon to pour through into her longhouses. Knowing Harald, the count won't take long.

"_Maybe_ Santana will go when she wants to," Brittany snaps, glowering at the reprimanding nudge she receives from her priestess.

_Stop making yourself anxious, _Santana scolds, _you are only making it worse. _

Brittany tries to glare but it comes out more as a frown, averting her eyes belatedly. _I'm not scared._

_I never said you were._

To their right they can hear the distant, quiet clatter of reindeer hooves against the rock; the Sami had arrived a week prior on their horned steeds and brought with them fifty warriors unmatched in marksmanship. The villagers whispered about curses as their phantom horses snorted and reared, unused to such places, but their leader had sought out the giants to speak for them. They will not die for them, not if they can help it, but their speed will ensure a constant pressure upon the left flank.

Santana still thinks of the Sami boy back in the camp and wonders what will become of him. The thoughts are grim.

To distract herself she begins to hum under her breath to no solid tune, letting the melody swell in her chest and bring her strength. Sophias and her teachings will be put to the blade this night, the ancient work of her ancestors melding with the northmen's own convoluted past. Perhaps the legacy of their predecessors will give them bravery—Santana just hopes it won't give them arrogance.

"We must go," Styrr urges, glancing up at the sky. "The air shifts, I feel it. The time dawns."

The priestess swallows hard and nods faintly, extinguishing her flame with a hiss. In the resulting darkness, all she can see is the gleam of Brittany's eyes as they watch her helplessly. "I understand. Can you..."

He nods silently and makes his way to the outcropping that had withstood the magical assault, his staff tapping distantly upon the stone. They are left alone in a sea of strangers, hands intertwining once again.

"You don't have to go with him," Brittany whispers hopefully, "you can stay here with me until the ambush. I can keep you safe."

Santana shakes her head and brushes her thumb along Brittany's strong jawline fondly, tracing the scar she was given when they first met. "I must go to keep _you_ safe. You know this."

"I know, but I hate it." Brittany bites her lip before moving forward and kissing her fiercely, fisting her hands into the thick fur of her robe, crushing her to her frozen mailed torso. Santana wraps her arm around Brittany's neck, one hand firmly wound into her braided hair, the other resting upon her hip. The world loses its sharp, foreboding edge for the moment as they remain against each other, Brittany's desperation soon leaking through her kiss.

Santana reluctantly tugs at her hair to detach their lips, resting their foreheads together. "Be strong," she whispers, smoothing her palms over her cold cheeks, "be true," their connection flares as she pulls away, "and be brave. I will see you when it ends."

She looks back only once to Brittany reaching for her, grasping for a ghost that floats away.

Her steps are firm as she climbs up the outcrop and rests next to Styrr, looking out over the dark, hilly plain the best she can. Distant flames flicker as Harald's army waits outside their front door to the west—sometimes there is a small flash of fire to the north where the king lies in wait.

"Are you ready?" Styrr asks neutrally, his eyes riveted to the horizon. Every muscle in his body is tense with anticipation, from the elegant slope of his neck to the anxious flickering of his fingers.

"I have to be," Santana replies with a sigh. The trembling of her stomach could simply be nerves but she tastes something vile and knows this battle will be hard-earned and bittersweet. Wherever the White Christ goes, death will follow.

She can hear the clattering of the Sami's hooves and the quiet whispering of four hundred men ready to die—vaguely she wonders if Harald's men are so eager to give their life away for their god. She wouldn't be.

A small eternity passes before Styrr nudges her harshly from her imaginings, pointing to the north. "There, look!" A fire rises from the top of the low hill that sits between the two armies, shadowy figures running back to their positions. She wordlessly holds out her hand and he clasps it firmly, the sudden jolt of power thick and heady on her tongue. Together they build the dragon that comes from their outstretched palms, its intensity burning away the clouds and blotting out the moon. It writhes and roars in the night sky as its luminosity turns the whole world into a midsummer's morning, casting its all-seeing light upon the confused men in their camps. For a moment they see the king's army, vast and reaching, his people sorted into blocks of men who rear back and launch their arrows towards the artificial sun.

The light fades and leaves the enemy blinded as arrows come down in whining droves, pelting them, driving through their armor and into their flesh. The panicked screaming begins as they rush to find their shields and cover themselves, commanders roaring orders as their regiments get picked apart. One by one they sort themselves out into clusters facing the north, shields high and battered, swords ready in their hands. The distant march of the king's forces is an ominous beat as his own groups of men take turns advancing, loosing more arrows into the void above and letting their hum be the only warning as more of the enemy falls.

Santana watches the distant figures of the women and children stranded in the camp flock to the middle, struck down by stray arrows that slice through their unprotected flesh. Little ones scream for their mothers as they take shelter the best they can, but she turns away to more important matters—they are the enemy as much as the men that guard them, and they too will die as trespassers.

The king's men march in a staggered formation; as one block advances they pass through the other ahead of them, offset and silent, moving to the front and giving the other group a chance to pelt stationary fire. Broken arrows litter the ground as they get closer—upon the outcropping, the magic-workers can see King Haraldr in all his shining glory, set upon a mighty white steed as he bellows orders. His men work around him as a well-manned ship with deadly precision as night finally falls once again in its entirety, blanketing the battlefield with nothing but a dull moonlit glow. Only then does the order come to sheath their bows and his men do so with a great roar, taking off at a sprint with axes and swords brandished, shields a great colourful blur as they pound across the field to face their foes.

As their battle cries float across the land they reach the ears of the jarl, who looks to the priestess and her ally for guidance. At Santana's nod they inch forward to the blocked entrance, weapons nervously clutched in their hands, jaws clenched and eyes hard. She catches Brittany's grave stare for a moment before she opens her mouth to sing.

"Hanar galande, galdrar groande,

nornar spinnande, lagnadar bindande,"

Eyja brought her under the light of the crescent moon to teach her one night—the moon of her Goddess, not that it matters now—when the rest of the village slumbered on. Long ago did the very first of the galdr-men sing their praises to nine worlds in their ancient tongue, their voices carrying upon the winds until all animals, man or beast, heard their song. It was this that Santana was to learn; their very first call.

"Gudar gråtande, ulvar ulande,

ravnar ropande, risar sovande,"

This chant has long rolled off the tongues of many warriors, but none had such power in their pronunciation nor such strength in their song. Just as it first slid effortlessly from her mouth when she began to learn so too does it now, twisting and bloating the air with its magic. She calls confidently, voice low and clear, bestowing her blessing upon the people of Kaupang. Wheresoever her song touches does it _burn_; men grip their weapons and howl for blood, feet stamping upon the ground, eyes wild and void of fear. The priestess sings for the living to be victorious and the dead to be honourable, calling the people to arms for gods and glory.

"Skuggar truande, aksen skinande,

ulvar jagande soli flyktande,"

As her voice rises to a crescendo Styrr raises his hands, his black magic flying forward and eating a hole through the barrier that blocks their way. It spreads itself like a plague and drips onto all that surrounds it until it melts off into the dirt, bubbling and hissing, allowing four hundred shouting men to stream out of the cluttered passageway and descend upon Harald's unprepared forces, their axe-blows devastating laced with her song. The effect continues long after she falls silent for it is one with them now, the call of their ancestors safe in their blood. Their forms in the distance are mere blurs of metal as Harald's forces bear the full brunt of their attack.

Further south, the berserkir bay in return.

_Be careful, _Santana pleads to her warrior, fearsome and unrelenting, as she turns away from the killing fields, _I do not wish to see you amongst the wounded. _

_ Me?_ Brittany bares her teeth as she deflects another blow from a panicked sword, flicking her spear up and under a loose helmet to slash at the tender arteries hidden from sight. He chokes on his own blood. _Never. You keep me strong, my love._

She senses Santana retreat to Kaupang where the wounded will undoubtedly be shuttled—even now she sees the first limp back to the town. Harald's warriors let them go, too occupied with warding off attacks from two fronts—distantly she hears the screaming of the women and children as the roaring berserkir descend upon them, unable to distinguish friend from foe. Her stomach churns as the crowd breaks for a moment and shespies Björk raising the head of a child in his fist, his skin ruddy from both the blood and the rage. They are soon distracted by the soldiers still in the camp taking up arms, but Björk keeps stubborn hold of the small head in his left hand.

Now, fully engaged in battle, it becomes obvious just how massive Harald's ranks are. The blocks his men have sorted themselves into are endless, pushing them away from the encampment like an impenetrable wall. Toppurinn throws himself at their ranks with renewed force, grasping two unfortunate soldiers in his hands and throwing them high up into the air like discarded ragdolls. The people of Kaupang fight by his flanks, slowly wading their way into the thick of the fight, deflecting spears and swords that would try to bite into his frostbitten flesh. Despite the metal coming at him from all sides, the jotunn's grin is exhilarated.

Brittany grunts as she takes a slighted blow on the shoulder, spinning out of the way and jamming her opponent with the end of her spear. He stumbles at the blow to his hip-joint, collapsing it, and she lets another deliver the killing blow. She has no interest in watching the light fade from his eyes.

A jolt in her chest alerts her to the fact that Santana has begun the healing process. It is unnerving, such a dark presence over the town, but some evils are unavoidable. Night has not yet begun to turn into day and she knows even with their perilous advantages, she will be stepping over the corpses of her friends once the day is done.

A roar of anger catches her attention, and she spins to see where Toppurinn has fallen to one knee, teeth bared into an ugly grimace as he blows his freezing breath over the soldiers to stop them in their tracks. With a gap in the line she sees a spear jutting out from the soft underside of his knee, crippling him. He tries to rise and bellows in agony, crashing back down to earth again, this time using his hands to catch himself. Men circle his wrists and attempt to keep him grounded, snarling and yelling, to which he replies unkindly.

"You!" Brittany calls to one of her own, his helmet swinging slightly as he faces her. "Bring your men, the jotunn needs our help!" She sees him debating to disagree, but another howl of pain must override any disapproval. He nods and barks an order to which fifteen or so heed, and together they forge their way to the frost giant.

It is slow going, bogged down by enemy spears and swords at all sides, and Brittany realizes that they might not make it in time. She accelerates her advance, yelling and thrashing, and her frenzy makes the others stronger. They manage to break the line and send Harald's men back a few paces, clearing a gap just in time for Brittany to see the barest glimpse of an animal charging through the battalion.

A weapon glints, and she pales.

"Toppurinn, watch out!" But the cavalryman charges his way through the ranks regardless of her warning, and the giant turns just in time to see the spear before it sinks itself through his massive, glowing eye.

His body wobbles for a moment before crashing down onto the snow, his strange blue blood dribbling down the side of his face. The giant's last rattling breath brings a silence to the field, as if time itself stops to honour the passing of the ancient one as his hands clench and release for a final time. Then with a sound that shakes the world akin to the deafening crack of ice shattering, reality slams back with the furious roar of Stórhríð. Whipping her head, Brittany barely manages to fling herself to the side, a thundering mass of horseflesh and steel trampling the earth where moments before she stood.

Pain lances up her shoulder as she hits and rolls, the horse already charging again but forced to veer at the last second to avoid a screaming projectile hurled by the rage maddened giant, now tearing his way through the battle field in a killing frenzy. Normans rally, presenting him with a thicket of spears, slowing him; they are waves on a stone, slowly but surely wearing the great one down. Her problem is more immediate—the man upon the horse smirks as she grips her shoulder, proudly boasting a linen tabard in white, now stained with gore, showing a finely embroidered cross in gold thread. No sell-sword this one, a noble, surely trained his entire life in war. A champion.

Allowing breath to fill her ragged lungs, Brittany forces calm through her mind before she faces him. Her hands anxiously twist the spear in her hands, the friction of wood against leather turning into a notion that blooms into a thought. What if... she eyes the horse coming back around for another charge. Swallowing, she plants the butt of the spear into the soft earth, pressing her foot on top of it and keeping the point low. As the horse begins to charge once again she prays and hunkers down, gritting her teeth until her jaw pops and aches. The ground shakes, her sight narrows, but rather than the echoing slowness they say the world always has before you die, it seems the horse is faster than ever, baring down upon her. On those last few strides she jerks her spear up as it passes by her, sinking into its soft, unprotected belly. It strikes the spear hard enough to shatter it, and as she falls aside with a winded grunt so too does the horse, it and rider tumbling over in the dark snow.

Ears ringing, she stands unsteadily, realizing her helmet has been torn from her head in the stumble. Her fingers gingerly skate across the numb side of her head, grimly weaving between shards of splinters and the ruined tatter of flesh that was once her ear.

Movement draws her eye, the horseman on his feet and already charging her. Brittany struggles to her feet but a dark blur catches the charging man and draws his attention away. Finngeirr, hulking in his shifting mail, bellows until his cries mix with screams of pain from the mortally wounded horse. Like a silver blur, the enemy's sword moves almost impossibly fast and graceful. Had his colourful clothing or beautiful horse not betrayed his status, his training would have left no doubt. Finngeirr solidly plants himself between the attacker and Brittany who stumbles to her feet, swallowing blood, gripping tightly to what remains of her spear. If he tries to face the champion, he will die, just as she would die. This stupid, childish boy will die for _her_, all through some misguided sense of duty that he believes he owes.

Gritting her teeth she staggers upright and rushes to join the fray. She spins under the champion's sword, dropping the shattered ruins of the spear and pulling her axe barely in time to block a backstroke. The man moves like a dancer, deftly deflecting one of Britany's brutal blows and making her feel clumsy and oafish as the tip of his blade bites into the chain of her armor.

"Go left!" she hisses to Finngeirr, but stutters to a confused stop when he interprets their movements.

"Did you think something so simple as language would give you an advantage?"demands the man in perfect Norse, his lips twisting into a grin. "I am Count Hamon, pagans. Throw down your weapon and I will make your death swift... perhaps even allow the girl to live as a camp whore."

"I have already had my fill of your Christian charity," Finngeirr growls through clenched teeth.

The man straightens slightly. "I am descendant of Rollo's loyal retainers. I have trained from before I could walk, and I will kill you both where you stand... or maybe keep your little harlot as a pet."

She spits blood, immediately regretting it as feeling slowly returns to her face and each gesture sends spikes of pain lancing across her skull.

"I'd rather die."

"Then I shall oblige."

It is all she can do to keep him at bay, his blade appearing everywhere and nowhere at once, and even then the sting of his near misses and nicks burn across her sweat-soaked body. Even without the horse and splitting his attention between them finds her painfully outmatched. Any one of these strokes, as graceful as they appear, could easily shatter bones or open her belly.

Desperate, she lunges the same time Finngeirr does, praying one of them will catch him. Neither do, and he spins between the two weapons, the silver arch of his blade flicking out and catching Finngeirr in the shoulder, easily puncturing his mail and sinking deep into his flesh. His eyes widen, and the knight twists his blade, sending a spasm through his arm and forcing him to drop his own weapon. Count Hamon pulls his sword out and slams the pommel into the back of Finngeir's skull, dropping the boy to the ground to lie still in a widening pool of blood.

Her boot edging into the growing lake of red, Brittany swallows and holds her axe up cautiously. Stórhríð is far away but carving his way through men as a farmer would scythe grain. Finngeirr is motionless, his blood seeping down and staining the snow a bright crimson. Her allies are occupied, all holding their own against the attackers. If she dies now, they will crumble; Kaupang will fall, Nor Veg will fall, and all remaining will be taken by the White Christ. What would Tyr do? She flexes her hand once as they circle each other and she recalls the tales her father used to tell her by the fire, of Ragnarok and the end of all things, the great wolf Fenrir and the god of war fighting to the bitter end. How he sacrificed a piece of himself to slay the beast...

A grim certainty fills her as the champion shuffles forward, the slightest shift in his stance giving her moments to prepare. His blade comes in for a stab at her throat, but rather than move she reaches with her left hand. Steel bites through the thin rabbit fur effortlessly and eats clean through her palm before she twists her arm to the side, catching the blade on the bones of her own hand and pulling it safely away, his body open.

With her waning strength she lunges, pushing her hand on the blade to force it to tilt away. The axe in her other hand arcs and she braces for impact, of metal shattering bone and the gurgle of the dying, but nothing comes. He spins into the swing, passing under the arch. His blade twists and the world turns white from pain as her hand cracks and splits like a red fissure; her two smallest fingers still attached to half of her palm spin through the air. She cries out and clutches her ruined hand to her chest, staggering back as she fights the urge to retch. Sensing the battle is over, Count Hamon leisurely wipes the blood from his sword and sheathes it. He walks calmly to his horse, still weakly kicking, and places a hand over its ear, whispering soothingly as he draws his seax and slits its throat. The beast kicks, tenses, and goes still. Her world swims out of focus as the man pulls the half of her spear from his horse's chest.

"I had that horse since I was a boy."

She winces as she collapses to her knees, only hearing echoes as he approaches.

"I learned to ride on her, I learned to fight on her, I rolled my first peasant girl in her stable."

Brittany awkwardly wraps her shattered hand in the excess material of her gambeson, trying in vain to staunch the flow of blood. Breath stuttering, she looks up at the champion now towering over her. His armour shines in the moonlight and he presses the tip of her spear against her chest. A rivulet of dark horse blood spreads down her armour. In the dark, she smiles.

"Do you have any last words, heathen?"

"I think so," she rasps out between clenched teeth, her head clear despite the pain and a defiant grin on her face. "I'm not the one you should be worried about."

Puzzlement crosses his face until he follows her gaze. The frenzied jotunn has made his way to them, scattering soldiers with sweeps of a cudgel he'd managed to find. He flings the weapon, actually a hapless soldier, aside and bellows a challenge as he charges the champion. Count Hamon raises his blade and attempts to twirl out of the way as he did against Brittany, but the giant twists and grabs the man's arm. With a terrible flick, he swings him as if he were a whip, his arm shattering with an audible snap. In his rage the giant grips his legs in one hand and torso in the other, twisting and tearing the screaming man in half as easily as a boy would a loaf of bread.

He stares at the now lifeless eyes of the champion, and in frustration throws him hard to the ground in front of Brittany where the corpse bounces and rolls to her feet. Her gorge finally rises as she sees the shattered remnants of his spine poking out from under his useless mail and retches to the side.

"The priestess... can she bring him back?"

She blinks, looking up hazily.

"What?"

"His first death was too swift, he should have many more."

She shakes from the pain; death on the field is one thing, but to torture a man to death time and time again?

"No... he would be something else, then."

"Pity," the giant rumbles, turning back to his brother. He stares at the body for a long while as Brittany stands, crouching down in the heat of battle to tuck his bloodied hair back under his head.

"Stupid, foolish brother..." he sighs heavily, the exhale knocking a few men to the ground, "you knew it would come. You even told me, but I refused to listen."

Brittany swallows the sour lump in her throat. "Stórhríð... I... "

"Say nothing," he rises darkly to his feet. "This is not over. I will not rest until they have all fallen under my fist."

The tone in the giant's voice is part weary resignation, part violent resolve. It is not a tone that will allow consolation, but perhaps one that can find solace in slaughter. She nods and he looks at her for a few moments before offering her his hand, to which she gratefully climbs upon.

"You, however, little warrior, could use a rest."

* * *

><p>Returned to an outcropping that overlooks the battlefield, Brittany leans heavily against a tree trunk as her wounds are tended to—Eyja has ventured from her home to dress the lesser injured, but she swallows as the warrior unwraps her shattered hand and offers it to her, the slightest hints of jagged bone poking out from the lump of her palm.<p>

"Brittany," she starts cautiously, gingerly taking her wrist in her hands, "you should go back to the village and have this tended properly."

But the girl shakes her head stubbornly, biting back a whimper when her hair brushes against what remains of her ear. "Santana needs to focus on the others," she insists, "having me there will only make it worse. Besides," she smiles, though it comes out as more of a grimace, "it is only my left hand. I can still fight."

The elder priestess looks over her critically; her paling skin, her drooping eyes, her trembling fingers (whichever ones remain). "You are in no shape to fight. Let the others take over the battle for a while."

Brittany swallows, looking to the pass where a few men travel to and from Kaupang. "I have no other option. Harald's men... they are winning."

Not too long ago the enemy must have noticed fallen men returning to fight with freshly healed wounds sealed black, for now their strokes are ruthless. All that come under their blades fall and perish—none are spared to limp away. A few lay dying, their spines shattered and legs useless, waiting for the merciful spear that will spare them the agony. Already she has had to step over her friends and their sightless eyes.

Finngeirr himself lies motionless upon the hill, his body limp and fallow, his head bound but still leaking. Even this... this _oaf_ had risked his life for her. That sacrifice, no matter how foolish, may not go in vain.

"Eyja, please, patch me up," she begs, shaking her hand a little and regretting it almost instantly. With a sigh the elder priestess does as she's asked, carefully taking a roll of fresh wrappings and smothering her wound, pressing it to the raw flesh and letting it soak up the blood that still leaks through the bandage. Brittany grits her teeth to stop herself from whimpering until it is done and her remaining two fingers poke out awkwardly from the stained linen, nails crusted with blood. Eyja makes to go for her ear but she shakes her head, standing up on wobbling legs.

"Thank you," she mumbles, turning to go. She hears Eyja calling after her but chooses to ignore it, instead looking out over the fields below.

Light has begun to dawn and it brings a certain ethereal glow to the snows stained red, casting its guidance upon the warriors that struggle still. From this height it is painfully obvious how outmatched they are, the king's army desperately trying to keep at bay the surging enemy who swells with reinforcements. They are all tired and cold and hungry, and perhaps that will be the cause of their demise long before a wayward sword or spear.

She catches barest glimpses of those she recognizes in the fray—in the distance she spots the distinct sword and build of William, his weapon cleaving in great strokes, the flank of warriors with him sweeping the battlefield. She swallows, remembering the champion who had almost claimed her life. Surely someone so young is not as strong? For the sake of her kinsmen, she prays it isn't so.

Shivering, she catches herself from a stumble, her left hand landing hard against the gnarled trunk of a yew. Pain shoots up her arm and blood seeps through the bandage where her fingers used to be. She aches, muscles sore and screaming, each breath sending agony through her battered body. The cost of that single fight was devastating—her shoulder stiff and aching, two fingers cleaved from her ravaged hand, ear destroyed, broken ribs, more bruises and slashes than she wants to think about... her eyes flick across the battlefield as she surveys the other losses, grimacing at those that have paid with more than just pieces of themselves as the crows begin to feed in the early morning light.

Fires smoulder in the enemy camp as the flames chew through their shelters, resting men forced from their beds only to be caught and slaughtered by the berserkir that remain. The fall of their comrades only seem to fuel their frenzy, and their demented, baying call carries through the dawn. On the right flank the Sami flit like wolves through the forest, their pelts merging with the trees and snows until they are one with the forests—their strange steeds bellow as they charge as soldiers, trained to fight in a line, suddenly find themselves fighting enemies who swoop in and vanish without a trace. Kaupang holds the hill as Haraldr asked of them, their blood spilling for king and kin as the invaders relentlessly pursue the advantage. To the uninitiated both armies appear to be evenly matched, but to Brittany's seasoned eyes they are losing.

_"You will come to know, little one, that all battles are as much the same as they are different."_

She can almost hear Grandfather's voice and smell the smoke from the woodfire of home.

_"Both sides match, manoeuvre, strike and parry, until one falters and the other destroys him. As with a man, so with an army. The trick is to find leverage, that one move that throws your opponent off balance."_

Leverage.

A cry goes up nearby and she sees where William and his forces have carved their way through front line and are cutting through the reserves, his gleaming sigil proud in the dawning sun. Haraldr is a fearsome warrior and has crushed many enemies under the heel of his boot, but he is no longer in his prime. His skin has wrinkled and thinned, his hair that has so given him his namesake receding from his forehead. William may be young but he moves with grace and skill, and each of his champions fights with the strength of ten men in a dance of blades and blood.

Her fingers brush the vial in the pouch at her belt. She needs rest; a break, a good meal, and a week in bed with nothing but hot baths and Santana's touch. There is no time for luxury nor necessity, and barely time to breath as the enemy smothers them.

_Leverage._

Her good hand tears open the pouch and before she can talk herself out of it, she has the cork in her teeth and spits it in the snow. She chokes the substance down, resisting the urge to gag as the scent burns her nose and the thick oily substance coats her tongue and worms its way between her teeth and down her throat. She swallows, trying to get the taste from her mouth and drops the bottle to bend over and spit the residue into the snow.

The bitterness lingers, but rather than the rotten decay like Santana's blackness, it has a copper tang like blood and the salty, musky hint of sweat. It tastes like the feral dregs of life itself, condensed and bottled, ready for abuse. The battle hums in and out, warped and distorted by the heartbeat that pounds in her ears as she begins to tremble and shake, breath coming in ragged inhalations, pupils shrinking to pinpricks. Every cry of the fallen grates on her hearing and her chattering teeth bare into a grimace, her hand finding her axe with a sure grip. There is a recklessness brought to light, hidden in every raging god; Odin as he finds fate, Tyr as he burns worlds, Thor as he brings lightning. Strength sings through her as her feet find balance, charging back down to the field with renewed purpose.

She bellows, taking the terrain in long strides; a straggler moves to intercept her, but she only has mind enough to cling onto the fact that Grandfather alone stands between William and the king—as epic a warrior as he once was (and still is), time has worn away at his bones just as it does all things. Their reserves are buckling as the enemy finds purchase, the entire battlefield seeming to groan and sway with this new shift in power. Her feet find bearing on a fallen soldier, bounding to a fallen trunk, and with a final push she flies screaming through the air. She curls herself away to avoid a startled strike, lips splitting into a feral grin as she comes down upon him. Brittany swings brutally against his stroke, the ring of steel on steel fills the air, and the man's thinner blade shatters. He looks at it dumbly as she raises the gleaming axe over her head before bringing it down without care, leaving him crumpled and crippled.

In her bones she feels both the music and the pulse of battle. The world hangs on the edge of a crystal knife as Brittany ducks and weaves, her axe a blur of crimson and silver arcs, blue inlays covered with blood. Her ruined hand nothing more than an afterthought as she roars and smashes her way through the wavering line with her arms a flurry of blood and death. As easily and carelessly as if she were hewing wood she slams her axe into a poorly thrust spear, snapping the head clean off. A boy stares back at the bleeding monster in front of him, scrambling in an effort to flee. Her second swing chases him until cleaves through the back of his skull and opens their panicked formation. Despite a quiet thought that probes at her consciousness, begging her to reconsider, she charges forward through the break.

King Haraldr sits atop his horse, seemingly oblivious to the danger, shouting orders and cutting down soldiers if they happen to be unlucky enough to come close. Her swings become more disjointed as she forces her way through the field; a man clad in mail knocks his broadside of his sword into her ribs but she barely feels the impact, stepping away from the blow and lodging her weapon into the fleshy slab of his neck. She doesn't have to look at the injury to know its fatality.

Mail rattles as she breaks through the other side of the enemy formation, her own forces swelling behind her. She steps atop a bolder to survey the scene amidst the chaos, fighting raging around her akin to the angry sea. Her eyes instantly fix on Haraldr's noble white horse, but there is no longer a rider mounted atop the saddle.

The king is sprawled on the ground, arm twisted at an awkward broken angle, his axe laying on the ground and his good hand clutching a knife. Little William towers over him, the tip of his bloody sword pointed straight at his chest, his face a grin victorious and elated. He raises his arms, both hands secure on the grip for the killing blow, but is knocked off his feet by a blur of white and grey. The two figures go sprawling into the snow, swallowed whole by the raging soldiers.

The heat building underneath her collar has almost turned unbearable, and she debates pulling her mail straight from her body in an effort to cool herself. Perhaps the sight would shock all of Harald's soldiers to death before her blade had even touched their skin.

Her thoughts are derailed when she spots William and Grandfather circling each other, sword against hammer, bloodstained and sweat-soaked. When they clash it is the sound of gods colliding, each shockwave seeming to reverberate across the battlefield. A deep gash runs across Grandfather's cheek and William holds his arm close to his chest, barely escaping a shattering blow from that legendary hammer.

Brittany holds her breath as Grandfather deftly avoids a thrusting strike, swinging wide and missing William's small body as he ducks beneath him. Grandfather attempts to spin to face his opponent but his lame foot buckles, and with a triumphant cry William drives forward. The blade punches through mail and ribs, ripping through the other side with a wet tear she swears she can hear echoing in her head. The old man stumbles for a second, hands opening to allow the heavy hammer to fall to the ground with a thud. The boy retracts his sword and the Hammer of the North collapses in a pile, defeated. Dead.

The world contracts, everything fades until all Brittany can focus on are his hands, the same hands that raised her, loved her, curling up and going still and stiff. Her body burns, teeth grind together, the rage swelling until she bursts at the seams with it, free of its long simmer. Her scream silences the battle field, turning into a broken howl as her feet find themselves and launch her into a full run. Fury like she has never known sets every nerve alight, buzzing and thrumming and vibrating alongside her grief until all that she can see is the boy and those foolish enough to stand in her way. He, who brought this war to them, who took a life he was unworthy to take.

All around her comes the cry of _berserkr!_ but she pays no mind, her axe cleaving through the throat of a Norseman too slow to move out of her way. He falls like a shadow breaking before the dawn, a little sliver of white and grey that holds no meaning, bringing no remorse or recognition. Another, faction unknown, moves in front of her and is cleaved from chest to crotch for his trouble, his flesh making a sloppy ripping sound as it tears open. Her ruined left hand snatches the sword from his hand as he falls, the pain no longer even a distraction. The first spear sinks into the meat of her shoulder, and she twists, pulling it from the hands of the startled soldier behind her. He is spared for he is not in her line of sight, blessedly out of her warpath. No thought is given to the first spear, or the second, or third, or any other wounds as she tears her way through the lines.

A pair of champions step to challenge her, but she drives her shoulder into his gut, jamming the sword through his groin. The blade twists out of her hand and she leaves it buried in the screaming man, twisting in an awkward moon to tear out the throat of his companion. They moan as they die even as she steps over their bodies and into the clearing where William advances on Harald. Spears hang heavily from her muscled back, sticking out at all angles. Their weight slows her but the pain is an afterthought, easily brushed away. Somewhere in the back of her mind a voice pounds against the rage induced haze, begging her to _stop_, to notice how her breath comes in gargles and the blood pours from the corners of her mouth, but nothing matters now save for Grandfather's body splayed dead in the snow.

The boy turns, regarding her skeptically, but readying his sword all the same. He takes in her trembling frame with the spears and the blood and the fury, her skin stained red both from gore and rage. He mutters a prayer under his breath as she leaps towards him like a wolf going for the kill. They dance, but Brittany is the hurricane and William the leaf. He looks into her eyes for a moment in a desperate attempt to find some semblance of weakness, but gazing back are the eyes of an animal, sightless and anguished. The dance can only end when one of the spills their life blood in sacrifice.

Brittany's existence condenses into the next strike or parry or step. The spears lodged into her slow her, but her rage pushes her, makes her stronger, and she drives the boy back against the backs of his soldiers. A snarl splits her face, teeth bloodied and cracked as she becomes all the stories of the berserkr brought to life. William scores a deep gash against her thigh but she steps forward as if it were not there, ignoring the blood spilling down her trousers and sloshing into her boot.

A spinning blow staggers the boy, and she presses the advantage, forcing him to stumble and fall. He claws his way backwards, each of Brittany's blows coming closer to his fragile flesh. He prays as he rolls, begging Mother Mary, the angels, _anybody _to spare him from her blade. Her miss nicks his boot and cuts the tender sole of his foot, lodging itself in the frozen earth. She snarls and wrenches it back to her side, advancing on the boy whose armies have taken _everything_ from her—the fear in his eyes will be her only solace as he dies. Her body breaks out into a final charge, axe raised high and voice trapped between a screech and a roar. So caught in her imminent victory she does not notice the point of his blade raise higher, nor the way his feet dig hard into the ground; only when she lunges and he rises to meet her does she realize the blade is too close, tearing through her mail and belly, impaling her to the hilt.

Her knees buckle from the initial blow and he is forced to support her weight, her body slumping over and almost draping his smaller frame. Brittany's axe clatters to the ground as the haze of the fury leaves her; pain burns away her anger with every inhale but she can't produce anything more than a breathy cry as he twists the blade, feeling the metal poke out of her back as it moves.

"You thought you could win," he whispers by her ear, the strength of his shoulder pressing against her chest. "You are a great warrior, Bretagne Piersson, but you are nothing compared to the grace of God."

Her vision narrows, the ground spinning out underneath her feet, but there is no end to the pain. What remaining fingers she has on her left hand circle his wrist still gripping the sword and she leans in, resting her cheek against his. A burning agony tears from her abdomen and claims every piece of her until the world dangerously falls away for a moment, only brought back by another sharp twist of his wrist. She sighs by his ear and lets her other hand caress down his back, coming to rest at the seax at his belt, her clumsy fingers gripping the fine handle and sliding it from its sheath.

"Your god..." she mumbles faintly, drawing the weapon and keeping her grip firm and tight, as close as a lover's touch, when he makes to pull away, "will not save you... from the end."

Unable to let go of her weight, William jerks back as she raises his seax with the rest of her strength and plunges it into the juncture of his neck, bypassing his mail and biting into his tender flesh where it ravages, cutting through skin and tendon and muscle until it finds the artery and rewards Brittany with a bright crimson spray of blood that warms her face and fingers. Once her grip fails he wrenches away and stumbles back, falling to the earth to leave a great trail of red behind him. His death will be swift, far swifter than hers. She rests a hand on the handle of the blade as she sinks to her knees, head tilted up to look at the sky in surreal appreciation.

A warrior brushes against her but she hardly feels the movement, uncaring as he falls under another's blade. It matters no longer—her deeds have been done, her songs have been sung. Somewhere on this field of carnage lies mighty Toppurinn, whose bones will return to the mountains that bore him. Grandfather lies in a crimson pool, the wind blowing strands of his once white hair. William kicks feebly as the last of his life ebbs away, and scattered around are the honoured dead, Norman and northmen made equal by the stroke of death's blade.

She slumps to her side, the spears and sword clattering as she falls, her hearing slowly fading out into silence. Men war without her and so too will it go until one side is victorious—distantly, she hopes that Haraldr lives still. Copper tangs her mouth as it dribbles from her lips, and she catches the faintest glimpse of dark hands before they are upon her, grabbing at the weapons in her flesh and pulling them from her desperately. She barely feels the pain, a slight groan escaping her throat as the sword is scattered to the side of the clearing.

Gingerly she is rolled onto her back, her head pillowed in something warm and soft. It is the scent she recognizes first and she smiles, gazing up at Santana who cradles her cheek and soundlessly begs something unknown. Instead, she weakly curls her fingers around Santana's hand that grips to her and pulls it to rest over her fading heart, her eyes drifting to one side as a figure comes to blot out the sun. The woman that comes on golden wings smiles serenely, her red hair haloing her face, and gently brushes the back of her hand across Brittany's cheek.

_ Rest now, warrior. Valhalla awaits._

Santana shakes her once again, yelling with no sound, and her sight floats back to connect with her for the last time. _Your eyes are so dark, _she wants to whisper, but her lips refuse to part. Though they are foreign, color eaten away by blackness, they are still Santana's, comforting in ways even the valkyrja cannot be. Never taking her gaze away, she watches the emptiness spread from them until the world turns quiet and black and cold.

Brittany closes her eyes and allows the valkyrja to lift her away from the agony and suffocating weight of her flesh. Rising above the clouds, she turns her head to watch her body recede, reaching a final time for Santana whose touch she might never know again.

In the red snow, Brittany's form takes a shuddering breath, relaxes, and finally goes still.


	25. Chapter 25

A/N: So the Thing has passed, but the problems have just begun. I want to thank all of you for your kind words in trusting me with the fate of these two girls when all looks grim - your encouragement and compliments mean a lot to a writer who is just beginning to find her feet. This marks the end of the second "book", so to speak, and begins the final arc of this fic. I'm so excited to write it, and hope you'll enjoy it just as much as I will. Thank you to **LeMasquerade**, as per usual, who has stuck through our crazy changing plotlines and stayed up with me until ungodly hours of the morning to think them through.

This beginning scene was the very first thing I thought of for Battlesong all those months ago, and I hope I did it justice.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 25<strong>

**hush, child, the darkness will rise from the deep**

**and carry you down into sleep**

** December 9th, 912**

In the warm pool of blood, Santana touches Brittany's parted lips.

"Britt?" she whimpers uncertainly, her thumb wiping away the trickle of blood upon her cheek lest it fall into her open mouth. Her eyes, glassed over in death, stare hooded at the sky that has begun to snow, spiralling down little flakes that catch in her lashes and remain.

"Britt, stop it." Santana shakes her a little, her fingers twisting in the broken mail draped over her body. There is an emptiness in her chest and head that booms, echoes, gapes with the lack of another presence shrouding her mind—she is alone with her thoughts for the first time in months and the loneliness is overpowering, the other soul floated away on golden wings to leave her in the snow.

Santana chokes on a sob and shakes her harder until Brittany's whole body shudders, her armour clinking where it scrunches together, her hand still feebly wrapped around Santana's fingers falling away to land with a dull thump on the ground. The warmth from her is fake, her blood steaming where it still trickles out around them, and it soaks through her robe as she pulls her limp body up until her lover's cool forehead is pressed to the crook of her neck. She listens for a heartbeat, a gentle exhale skating across her skin, but there is nothing except the empty and the quiet and the blood.

"You promised to be careful," she sobs, rocking them, "you _promised_ a-and you never break promises, remember? Never!" She brushes a damp strand of blonde hair from Brittany's drooping eyes, clutching her mail until she slumps into her lap. "Please don't make me do this without you... _please_, oh Goddess I can't, I can't do it—"

She breaks off and buries her face into Brittany's sweat-soaked hair, catching the barest glimpse of her staff and the ruby that has gone dull and black and dead.

Gone.

Her wail carries across the battlefield until all are witness to her sorrow; plumes of fire bloom in her anguish but she knows none of it, not the ring of flame bursting around them nor the way it reaches outwards and inwards and burns those foolish enough to encroach. Fire licks her hair and her fingers but it does not warm the cooling body in her arms.

**A tragic end to a doomed tale.**

"I-it wasn't s-supposed to _be_ like this!" she chokes out, rocking Brittany's lifeless body. They rock back and forth, steadily, as if it is the only thing keeping her together—she feels its voice bound in the empty hollows Brittany has left behind, and she feels tainted, her memory corrupted by its foul presence. She attempts to push it from her mind but her grief is stronger, giving up to press her lips to Brittany's temple instead.

**It never is.**

_"Are you ready?" Brittany laughs, the echo of it floating around them as she pulls on Santana's fingers. The priestess begrudgingly follows her through the trees, their leaves thick and broad with summer, her feet stumbling on the roots that her companion has learned by heart._

_ "For what?" Her question goes unanswered as they arrive at the familiar entryway of Brittany's home—the fire churns soft smoke into the air and the clouds have departed to leave a blue, blue sky that shines down upon them as they duck into her home. _

_ It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust, but the grin stretched across Brittany's lips is painfully obvious. _

_ "Do you like it?" Her tone is bursting with mirth, and it takes a moment for her gaze to find it; Sandalio lying morosely on the ground, his body draped in mismatched fabric. A little dress has been stitched over him in blues and greens by an obviously unpractised hand and a little shawl is tied about his ears, pinning them down. He looks so miserable that his pleading eyes just make Santana laugh harder. _

_"Beautiful, Brittany."_

Men fall and children die and distantly she hears the blast of a horn—the stampede of hooves come from the forests with the whistling hum of arrows raining down upon the field. The centaur have arrived moments too late, and their war-cry bellows across the fields, Harald's men screaming and breaking line to flee. The horse-men will chase them down, but it is of no consolation. To her, they have already lost.

_She wakes from another nightmare, gasping and crying, lashing out at the shadows only she can see. Arms are around her again and Brittany whispers quiet nothings into her hair as she slowly rocks them; back and forth, back and forth, bringing calm to her frenzied mind. Santana swallows harshly and grips the base of her lover's neck so hard it threatens to crush, counting every solid ridge in her spine. _

_ "I remember," she chokes, "I remember this one, you died and you were gone and you left me _alone_, and I... I couldn't—" _

_ Brittany hushes her again, pressing her lips to the crown of her head. "Never," she whispers in the dark of the night, "I'm right here. I promise. Not even Odin could take me away now." _

**I can return her to you.**

Santana swallows her sob, glancing up at the sky. The fire around them smoulders, lapping at her feet and shoulders, the odd tongue shooting above her head—an odd darkening touches the base from which she feels its weight and presence, vast and unending, whispering from beyond.

"You... you lie," she rebukes, helplessly wiping at her eyes. Her hands are stained with blood that is not her own and every single attempt streaks it over her face, covering her in her own failure. "Nothing can do that."

**I can.**

_"If you weren't a warrior, what would you be?"_

_ They lie under a great oak, and Brittany's hair is smooth under her fingers, the strands slipping like silk. Her eyes are soft and sleepy and in this light she looks divine, the White Christ and all his angels come down to earth. _

_ "A dancer," she sighs with her voice quiet and whimsical, her smile drooping as she fights sleep. "Like fighting but without the pain." _

_ Santana's lips curl into a fond smirk as she smooths her thumb over one fine eyebrow, listening to the hum as Brittany rubs her cheek against her palm. Her body thrums with contentment and if she could lay here forever, away from the war and the world, she would take it._

_ "It looks like we have to win the war so you can do that, hm?" _

_ "Do people dance in Iberia?" Brittany asks faintly, her voice trailing out into snores._

_ "Always." _

**In time, you will forget. Maybe not her face, but her smile and her voice and her eyes. She will become but a thought to you—a fleeting remnant of what used to be. **

She looks at Brittany's face, traces her gaze over her cheekbones spattered with blood and her open lips parted into an eternal sigh.

"I could never forget," she whispers hoarsely. "It would hurt too much."

**You are human, as is your memory. Time will come and erase her bones from this earth. **

A flicker of shadow curls around her boot, but she refuses to take her eyes away from where they rest. "You... can change that?"

**I am endless; undying. Give me what I desire, and I will bring her back to you. **

Santana swallows, playing absently with Brittany's limp fingers. The digits have already gone cold and stiff, the winter seeping into her stilled blood and turning it to ice. "She will be human, yes? Not a draugr?"

**One cannot escape from death unscathed, priestess... but she will breathe once again. **

There is a voice in her head that sounds suspiciously like her lover, begging her not to give in, but all she knows is that soon the battle will end and they will take her body away to be burned, and she will lose the definition of her nose and the slope of her lips until nothing but a faded memory remains. There will be _nothing_ but a pile of ashes to commemorate what was once a star that could outshine the universe.

_Forgive me, my love. _

"Take me."

The world ends and begins anew as the shadows surround them, crawling in through nose and mouth and ears until her arteries bloat and strain with it, twisting in the nuances of her lungs and seeping into her stomach. This is different than before—she still screams until her throat cracks and bleeds and her mind splits apart, but now the darkness is there to gather her back again, wrapping her in its smothering embrace to unwind and reset, breaking her bones only to mend them again. The flames around her soar and crackle; a great pillar, a spiralling tower, a burning beacon that dries the air and renders it a scorching vacuum. Santana howls and cries until a tendril snakes through her throat to silence the sound.

**Give into me, priestess! We will bring her back together!**

She lays Brittany on the ground and pushes her hands to her still heart, her fingers clawing and grasping at the bloody chain beneath her until it rips under her inhumane grip—a tendril snakes in and plunges its way through Brittany's chest, invading her, _tainting _her, curling through her nose and mouth and eyes. One of her hands finds a stone in Brittany's pouch, smooth and warm, but she dares not look at it lest it break her concentration. Everything is so hot, burning and dying, but Brittany is still cold.

**Now, priestess, now!**

With a sob, Santana opens her soul to the very core of the darkness.

* * *

><p>She awakens to gold above her.<p>

The woman splayed in the lush grass flexes her hands briefly, the softness tickling the pads of her fingers, her blonde hair splayed out like a pillow underneath her head. The world comes into focus slowly; hints of blue sky peeking through the gold foliage, the quiet whisper of a warm breeze, the scent of flowering plants. Brittany rubs wearily at her eyes and sits herself up, glancing around at the copse of trees she happens to have landed in.

"Hello?" she calls out cautiously, climbing to her feet. Her shining mail hangs proudly about her frame as she begins to walk in any random direction, brushing the foliage out of the way on her path forward. "Is anyone there?"

_We have been waiting for you, brave warrior._

Her head snaps up and she spins around in a clumsy circle, struggling to find the source of the voice. "Who's there?" she demands, and yet feels no fear.

_Follow where your feet wish to take you._

Forward, it seems; she continues her journey, traversing a rocky path upwards and downwards, eventually breaking free of the strange, golden leaves to emerge out into the open air where the sun nearly blinds her. As bright as it is, it does not eclipse the towering mountains nor the massive hall carved into the face of the greatest peak.

She gapes openly at the building that has seemingly been etched into the cliffs themselves, massive trees twining and spiralling outwards to fan the surroundings in a beautiful, green glow. A goat and an elk wander atop its roof, munching on those great leaves, and the distant sound of singing and laughing can be heard floating through its windows. Drawn like a moth to a flame Brittany breaks out into a sprint, a grin spreading over her face as she realizes she has no need to gasp for air as she runs.

Her feet stumble but she does not fall, her eyes narrowed in on those two great doors that herald her into the hall filled with light and laughter. Figures stand outside, waiting, and she recognizes the tallest one first.

"Afi!" she all but shrieks, throwing herself at him to where he stumbles backwards, his great arms wrapping around her in a crushing embrace. His body is strong and broad where it hadn't been in years, his wizened hands gripping her tightly until he shrugs her away with a wry smile. "You... you're here! Why? Where am I? What happened? I thought you died— no, I _saw_ you die!"

"Aye," he agrees, "I did. But all is right now, my child, see? Do you know where you are?"

Brittany swallows as she looks up to the ornate carvings in the stone, the beautiful scenery around her. She doesn't wish to hope, but, is this...

"Valhalla," another voice interrupts, and she turns to see a woman smiling softly at her. "You made it, Bretagne."

Brittany frowns, stepping away from Yngvarr. "I know you."

"You do."

(If she'd turn, she'd see Grandfather with his eyes wet from tears.)

"You... I..." That face, that hair... that _smile._ "Mother?"

The woman—Mother—opens her arms with a laugh. "Welcome home, my love."

Brittany doesn't hesitate to step into her embrace, wrapping her arms tightly about her neck. She may be taller than her now, but she still remembers how she was cradled that night in Holland, the warm arms about her the same as they were. She buries her face in soft blonde hair so like her own, and allows herself to be rocked soothingly upon the steps of salvation. Grandfather places his strong hand upon her shoulder and all feels right with the world.

"You have travelled a long road to find this place, warrior."

She looks up tearily and blinks the moisture from her eyes to better focus on the new figure in front of her—an old man with a white beard that nearly reaches his waist, gripping a long ashwood staff and shrouded in a dark cloak. Two ravens perch upon his shoulders, their beady eyes familiar, and when they croak she inhales sharply.

"You made them bite me!" she accuses, coughing sheepishly when his single eye lightens in amusement. Huginn and Munnin croak indignantly and hop on their perch. "Sorry, I just... that hurt."

"I am sure," he replies thoughtfully, running one gnarled finger down Munnin's beak. "They do what they will, Bretagne. I am simply their keeper."

Brittany rubs nervously at her neck, ducking her head when the old man attempts to make eye-contact. "How long have you been watching us, my... um, my lord?" Her cheeks redden when he smirks slightly.

"Call me by my name, child."

"Odinn, then."

"Oh, the day of your birth. You were always most interesting to me... you still are, now that you are here. So much like Svala."

Her mother smiles bashfully and adjusts the sword strapped to her hip, brushing her hair behind her ear. "She has far outshone me, I believe."

The old god hums his agreement, his sole eye travelling over her frame for a wistful moment. "Yes, perhaps... what a pair of beautiful golden wings she would have worn..." She frowns when he turns from her, but it is washed away when he pushes upon the great wooden doors that bar her entry to Valhalla. They swing open with a groan, a blast of warm wind brushing against her skin, bringing with it the scent of ale and roasting meat.

Rows upon rows of benches follow great wooden tables laden with whole pigs and cows, cups of mead and ale and wine all mixed together, surrounded by men who drink and laugh and jostle each other, clinking cups and weapons as they gorge themselves. A man in bearskin turns, and Brittany gasps as Björk smirks and salutes her, he too taking his rightful place amongst the fallen.

"I... made it?" she asks in wonderment, hovering just at the threshold. All those years of being told Odinn would never accept a woman, that her mother rotted with Hel and the dank skeletons that make her kingdom... was it all for naught?

"Of course!" Grandfather laughs, clapping her over the back where she feels something staggering was at one point. "You are a great warrior, and all great warriors come to Valhalla when they fall."

Her mother snakes their fingers together, relishing the feel of her daughter's skin as something more than just a memory. "Do you remember what happened, Bretagne?"

Brittany frowns. She remembers the blood and the screaming and the pain, but it all crushes together into a blur of fury and grief. "I... died, right?" Svala nods, stroking soothingly at her lax knuckles. "William... the boy. The _boy._ Is he here?"

"The boy is with the White Christ, as he would have wanted," Odinn replies with a sigh, shaking his head. "So many wasted warriors."

She gingerly touches where she now remembers his sword tearing through her belly as easily as if it were water, the sickening crunch of her spine snapping and yielding to the rigidity of his blade. There is no pain, no wound, only a flat scar as a remnant. Her hands wrap around to her back, prodding at all the gouges the spears had made... nothing.

"You do not carry your wounds with you in death, my love," Svala smiles. "Everything begins anew."

Yes, yes, but there is something missing. A thought, a memory, a feeling. Brittany cannot place it now, nor the nagging conscious that screams at her to remember. Instead she is drawn to Valhalla's golden halls, the scent of food that calls to her rumbling stomach. "Can I... can I come in?" she asks excitedly, taking one step forward so her foot passes the threshold. Her body thrums with anticipation to take her seat amongst the fabled warriors, next to Grandfather and Mother, but there is a hand on her wrist that pulls her until she stands before them again. They wear different expressions now, and she frowns as she attempts to place them. "What? What's wrong? Everything is okay now, right? I earned my place?"

"Of course you did," Svala hushes, "you did much more than that. Never doubt that for a second."

"Then why are you looking at me like that? Why are you upset?"

Her mother smiles—a thin, watery thing—and steps up on her toes to kiss her forehead, her youthful face regretful but resigned. Long fingers stroke through her loose hair (yet another thing that makes them look like true kin) as she's pressed to her mother's bosom, her chin nestled upon her strong shoulder. "You have made me _so proud_," Svala chokes out, "never dare forget that."

Brittany swallows and nods, pulling back to wipe at the tears that have made their way down her mother's smooth skin. "Why are you crying?"

Svala shakes her head, instead rubbing at her arms comfortingly. "Be strong, my love, be brave. Be _true._"

Wait, those words...

The sky darkens and all heads tilt up to look at the clouds that have suddenly gathered, their bulk heavy and bloated with rain. Thunder rolls and lighting flashes to illuminate each of them simultaneously, the smile on her mother's face pained. Grandfather strokes his rough hand down her cheek before squeezing her hand, pulling away when she reaches for him.

"Wait, what is—"

"We will be watching for you, Bretagne. I promise you will never be alone."

Shadows creep in through the trees and curl around her ankles and wrists, dragging her back though she digs her feet into the dirt. She struggles, wrenching away only to be snared by two more, fighting to return to her family and the god who watches with a curious eye.

"I will never be far away," he vows, his voice distant, "if you desire my strength, you need simply ask."

"No!" she screams, staggering as they yank her backwards, "I was almost there! I was so close! I—" A mighty tug and she flies through the air, trees and sky rushing past until it all condenses into a whirling ball that has her tumbling through space and time and earth, shrieking as she hurtles through all nine worlds before tasting the familiar tang of blood. Brittany barely has time to see the ground rushing up towards her before the world goes dark.

* * *

><p>The body beneath her jerks for a moment before taking a single heaving gasp, sputtering black filth where it spatters over her lips and down the sides of her mouth. Nearly forgotten, the ruby in Santana's staff clears to a crimson red once again, the thud of her heartbeat bringing life into its black depths. Santana presses her fingers to Brittany's neck, almost disbelieving at the pulse she finds there, booming strong and true.<p>

"She... lives?" she whispers in disbelief, gently wiping some of the blackness from her mouth.

**Of course. I kept my word, priestess, now you must keep yours.**

Santana nods absently, reaching for her knife. "It is blood you want, no?"

**More is required than you can give for such a rebirth. **

Too occupied with watching Brittany's face regain colour once again, Santana simply mutters her distracted agreement. "Do what you will."

It catches her attention when her back splits open at the seam.

She screeches, pitching forward, her head dropping to Brittany's moving chest as she feels _something_ roil and rupture from her, tearing her skin asunder and ripping her apart from the inside. Great tendrils burst from the exposed expanse of her back, writhing and whipping about, banishing her great flames so that they may claim their prize. The slime they ooze drips onto the earth and eats away at the snow, killing whatever it may touch and leaving nothing but desecration in its wake. She howls, and with her movements do _they _move, seeking out friend or foe alike, drilling through their chests and lifting them high into the sky where it feeds until their corpses, desiccated, litter the ground.

Moments later she feels their blood flow into her, filling her with warmth and comfort. Santana struggles to kneel upright, knocked off balance by the sheer power of these moving monstrosities.

"What have you _done_ to me?" she gasps, pulling herself to one knee just before one finds its prize—his scream is drowned to a gurgle as he dies impaled on her new-found limb.

**We are One, as was foretold.**

Her robe, split and singed, falls from her body to leave her naked and trembling, the tendrils that come from her weeping back ripping through the battlefield. Those that attempt to cut them find them regenerated, wrapping around them to suffocate or simply worming down their throats where they choke on their acid. Amidst the chaos does Santana wrap her arm underneath Brittany's knees, her other cradling her strong back as she lifts them both to a standing position. To her, she weighs less than air.

"Time to go back to Kaupang, Britt," Santana says softly, beginning the long walk to the hill where the wounded lay.

She parts them like their prophet did his bloody sea, the black limbs slamming into the fray and forcing a path. Santana walks through unscathed, her eyes of night and voice of shadow, never taking her gaze from Brittany's sleeping features. She hardly notices the way her twisted wings suck the life from the battlefield, their sacrifice imbuing within her a power unseen. Is this what gods come to earth know during their days as false mortals?

A Norman runs screaming at them, spitting curses and prayers alike, but she watches impassively as one tendril catches the frothing man by the face, its sucking embrace clamping around his skull as he scrambles and claws at the thing that melts his skin from his bones. When he is released, nothing but a grinning skull remains.

Perhaps she will feel guilt when the dust settles, a pang for life lost, but all she knows is the borrowed blood thrumming through her and the answering echo of Brittany's returned heartbeat, bringing blessed noise to the silence in her head.

Santana steps onto the hill with a certain sigh of relief—men moan and cry about her but she pays them no mind, her bare feet crunching along the trodden snow without a care. At rest now, her tendrils hover about her, streaming in all directions. Their slime blackens the earth that she walks.

Before her is Styrr, prostrate with his head upon the ground, hands bent above himself in prayer. She smiles as a feeling that is not entirely her own curls through her chest, her foot nudging his cheek until he raises himself, shoulders hunched and eyes wide in reverence.

"It worked," he whispers in awe, resisting the urge to drop to his knees once again.

**"Of course it did. Do you doubt me?"** Santana frowns, clearing her throat. Who said that?

"No, never, never... what do you need from me, Master?"

She chooses not to correct him, instead handing Brittany's body into his care. The unconscious girl mumbles slightly as she's passed over, her hand gripping weakly at his robe. "Take her back to Kaupang. Make sure no harm comes to her, do you understand?"

"Yes, of course. She will be safe with me."

**"Good. When you return, I have your reward."**

His grin is foreign and foreboding, but he does as he's told, making his rapid way back to the town. Santana rubs at her temple and chooses to discard the strange things coming from her mouth and the way they sound akin to many speaking at once. There are more important things to worry about now.

She stands upon the peak of the hill and watches the factions fight and die below; the centaur come and cut wide swaths of men with their enchanted blades flashing gold in the sun, their bodies rearing and hooves slamming into faces and throats. Quinn leads the fray, her lips twisted into a feral snarl, her skin red as she cuts away at the enemy like an infected wound. Still, despite their timely reinforcements, they are still losing. The dead of Kaupang litter the ground, the very wounds she had healed re-opened at the mercy of the enemy's blade. Men and boys alike cry as they die; those found by her wrath lie still and silent amidst the fury, their faces white as newborn snow.

Her eyes move across the battlefield disdainfully, her full lips curling into a sneer. "**Let us finish this."**

Santana's tendrils anchor themselves into the ground and lift her high above the earth. Her feet leave the snow until she is suspended, pulled into the very throb of the world—all of their heartbeats pound disjointed, and she feels the quiet of those fallen, the breath no longer moving in their lungs. She coaxes their eyes to open again as her darkness leaks through their mouths and around their hearts until their bodies spasm; once, twice, the first lifting himself with a rattling groan to look around once more.

The others rise until all have come again to serve their master (mistress?), enemies united in death. She grins and sends them forward, their gnashing teeth and ironwood grip descending upon the foolish Normans who shriek and cry out as the dead return to walk amongst the living. The king's forces scramble away, confused and terrified, a few being caught by wayward hands and dragged flailing into open mouths. The screams of Harald's men as they die are the utmost victory and the greatest solace.

"Santana, stop it!" Her eyes snap open again she fixes her irritated stare upon Eyja, the elder priestess biting anxiously at her nails. "You defeated them, the battle is over. Call them away!"

**"They will suffer for what they have done."**

"You are killing our people as much as they! Look, even the centaurs are being eaten."

Her gaze floats to the horse-men that now fight off the undead with their enemies, kicking wildly and slashing with all their might. One draws Quinn's arm to its mouth, but she cleaves its skull wide open with a vicious chop of her sword.

"They tried to take her from me," she says softly, but pulls at the strings in her mind that connect them together. The draugar groan and stumble away from their allies.

"She is safe now, Santana. _Alive._ You have done all that you can."

With a quiet sigh she dissipates the draugar, their soulless bodies shuddering before dropping back to the earth with nothing more than a wheeze. The battlefield turns silent and calm, the moan of the dying the only sound that crosses the winds. Suddenly disgusted with bodies torn asunder, she lands on the ground with a thump and coils the tendrils clumsily within herself, her back healing save for the single black like that snakes down the length of her spine. A mouthful of dark that now runs liberally from her lips is spit upon the ground.

The stone from Brittany's pocket rubs against her hand—she had forgotten she had grasped it so tight, caught in the throes of temporary madness. Her thumb rubs over it but pauses, flipping it on its belly to read the rune hidden underneath.

"What is this?" she asks, deadly calm, snatching it away when Eyja makes to take it.

"A-a rune... Bretagne asked for it before the war."

"What does it say?"

"It... it is Algiz. Courage."

**The rune of the valkyrja. Fitting.**

Santana startles, looking around.

"What? Why?" she demands, ignoring Eyja's confused response.

**It pushed her to madness. Warriors are not supposed to hold such magical things. **

The priestess narrows her eyes suspiciously, her black gaze bottomless and foreboding. The elder woman takes a step backwards but finds her path blocked by the edge of the cliff.

**Punish her. You are not to be crossed.**

"Santana... what are you—"

As she watches, Santana crushes it in her fist with a hard crunch, her knuckles turning white before releasing the fine rubble that remains. Eyja swallows as it trickles down into the battlefield below. "If I were you, I would stop giving runes to those who do not need them."

With a final glare, she turns and makes her way back to Kaupang.

_We may be linked, but you do not control me,_ Santana sneers, her bare feet traversing effortlessly over the jagged rocks. Despite the bitter wind, her skin is warmed by the glowing sun, bright and strong, casting a slick shine over her loose hair. All turn to watch her as she makes her steady journey back into town.

**We are One, priestess. You cannot escape.**

_So long as I know myself, we will never be whole. You are not as strong as you wish. _

A haunting laugh echoes in her head, bounding around the cavities where other gods used to lie.

**Believe what you will. **

Kaupang itself is a hive of activity—women rush about with baskets full of food or medicine, their scuttling children a nuisance underfoot as they dart between ruined houses like startled fish. Even from the mouth of the village, she can hear the cries of the wounded as her mother sets their bones and cleans their wounds, their blood running through the streets until it stains the bare soles of her feet. A few of the enemy have been captured; tied roughly to wooden stakes, their are eyes haunted and empty.

Santana leisurely approaches the small hut where she feels her lover's life-force pulsing through the air—with this new power everything is intense, saturated with magic. She can almost see the green wisps of her breath puff through the cracks of the wooden walls.

Styrr emerges from the depths, dipping his head instantly once he catches sight of her. "She is still resting. I do not think she will rise for some time."

She nods, opening the door enough to see Brittany's body swaddled in furs, the comforting rise and fall of her chest evident even in the gloom. Her tall frame looks unusually delicate and fragile, a reminder of how close she came to losing her.

"Very good," she murmurs, pleased as she shuts the door once again. A sudden fondness washes over her and she does not resist as her hand moves to stroke over his cheek, smiling as he leans into the touch like a dog. **"You** **have been of great use to me, Styrr. It is time I give what I promised you all those years ago." **

Strange words run in her head like water and she repeats them, their slippery syllables sliding from her tongue, her hands opening and blooming tendrils from her palms, spreading upwards and outwards like the branches of a gnarled tree. The world around them goes quiet and dark as she turns so they touch the earth, eating away the snow and mud until they are black with rot. She murmurs and allows this feeling to guide her, shaping these shapeless things into a tangible lump that grows and swells until it reaches her chin, widening and taking on a form that becomes real and knowable the more she concentrates.

Eventually it takes on the figure of a person; Styrr holds his breath as tendrils become legs become toes, hands and fingers and face and hair, spinning and weaving out of darkness until pale skin blossoms, nubile as new-fallen snow, emerging from the slime with an oddly slanted mouth and a squat torso but bright, expressive eyes.

She feels the moment this person starts to breathe, its shuddering inhale defying things like life and death and time. One has been returned from oblivion, removed from the threads of history, and now this walking paradox turns slowly and tests the air of the earth.

"Styrr?" it whispers, hoarse, and he chokes on what must be a sob.

"_Jutta..." _He runs and gathers her up in his arms, uncaring of the slime that rubs itself over his robes. Styrr buries his face into the sticky mop of hair and rocks them until it grows dizzy, its little hands clutching at his sides. "My sister, my sister... you are safe now, home, you are _home_."

The man looks over its head and the tears shining in his eyes are foreign and unwelcome; the human emotion upon his expression makes her shift in her spot, biting at her lips and clenching her fists. This... _elation_ that he is experiencing sits wrong upon his shoulders—she feels it like she feels all things now, but it simply fills her with a strange disdain.

"Who... who is this?" Santana asks shakily, pulling the darkness back inside her body. It sits heavily in her veins until it crawls along inside her, flowing through her jaw and eyes and heart as effortlessly as magic does the same.

He looks at her strangely, still petting the abomination's hair. "My sister, sire. As you promised."

"I am not your sire!" Her head throbs and she clutches at it, biting back her own disagreeing words.

"Oh." She looks up to see him nodding wisely, a pensive expression twisted upon his lips. "You are resisting the change."

"What change?"

"You know what it is."

Snarling, she clenches her fist and feels the answering gasp in the thing she has created, her body crumpling over until she stands hunched at the waist. "_Enlighten me _or else I will take away your little reward."

Despite smoothing his hand over the suffering girl's back, coaxing her upright, he seems unfazed. "You feel it within you, do you not? Existing? Corrupting?"

Santana licks her lips and tastes the bitter tang of its influence, grudgingly spitting it into the snow.

"You may wish to pretend that you can control it, but your eyes betray you. Together you are One, but you are not Whole." He smirks. "That will come in time."

**I have waited eons for your birth, priestess. I will wait longer for you to understand. **

With an infuriated cry Santana spins, bolting away in an effort to put distance between his smirk and the thing that watches her with curious eyes. Her feet take her on the path they know well, ducking and weaving under low-lying branches, sometimes simply blasting large ones from her way. She stumbles into their home clumsily, sucking air, trembling more from the adrenaline than the cold.

Surely an infection of the mind is no different than one of the body... it can be cut out like all others, cured with prayer and medicine. She rubs her hand down her face in irritation and grimaces when it comes back black, going to wipe it on her robe before she remembers it lies abandoned on the battlefield. Sighing, she plops down heavily on a stool, glancing around in the gloom that her eyes pierce as easily as mid-morning's glow. Their bed still lies unmade, the vague impression of their sleeping bodies a faint outline from yesterday's embrace. How she longs for such a thing now...

A whimper catches her attention, and she flits her gaze over to the far corner of the room. There is a shadow cowering, trembling, the skittering of claws in the dirt and the flash of white bandage a hint as to the culprit. She grins and advances to the ball of fur, crouching down once she is able to see the reflected gleam of Sandalio's eyes.

"It's just me, sweetheart," she coos, putting her hand out. "The bad ones are gone, everything is okay now. You have no reason to be scared."

She sees the hint of teeth just in time for her to draw her fingers back, his jaws snapping at air a moment too late. Santana frowns and ducks down to his level, staring into his terrified eyes. "It's mistress, remember? Santana? Brittany's Santana?"

But listening to his erratic heartbeat, all she receives is a chain of _nononobadthingbaddarkleavenobad_ that stabs like any knife, only twisted when he scuttles to the other corner and remains, whimpering at every attempt to come closer.

"Sandalio, _please_," she begs helplessly, "I am still me. I love you, remember?"

She receives a low growl in return, tail tucked between his legs and ears pinned back over his skull. Santana slumps back in her stool and miserably watches her beloved pet tremble and snarl at her every movement. Is this what sacrifice entails? Saving one love to lose another?

She grows weary of the way he whimpers and makes her slow, morose way back to Kaupang. Brittany has not yet awoken and she is caught in limbo, torn between the frightened looks given from passerby and the new strength that tells her they should mean nothing. These people whom have grown to accept her seem to take their friendship back so quickly; Gynna pulls a battle-weary Reinn into her side, her eyes sad and scared. He makes to go to her, but his mother shakes her head and they retreat into their temporary home.

Perhaps putting on clothes would make them a little less wary... but every vendor turns away, staring into her colourless eyes and the grime on her skin, darting away or pointedly turning to speak to another. Santana sighs, running her hands down her forearms, turning instead to retreat to the safety of Brittany's bedside.

A spike of heat upon her breastbone is the only warning she has before her head is spun about from an unseen slap.

She staggers momentarily, blinking the lights from her vision as her fire whirls about her feet on instinct—her stained teeth bare as she turns to face her attacker, only to falter at her mother's furious face glaring back. The sudden scorch upon her chest makes sense now, their necklace glowing bright and hot in the morning light.

"You!" Maria roars, and never has Santana heard her voice crack so. "You fool! You _imbecile!_ Do you know what you have done?!"

"I seem to have done a lot of things recently," Santana spits the hint of blood away. "Do tell me what it is this time."

"This is no time for games, Santana! Bringing the dead back into this world? It is both unnatural and impossible—you _know_ this!"

"Impossible?" She gestures towards Brittany's healing hut with a hint of pride teasing along the corners of her mouth. "I thought so too, but she breathes, Mami. Her heart _beats_ again. I can do anything with this."

Maria pinches the bridge of her nose, brows furrowed into a hard line. "I should have seen the signs earlier... I knew I should have pursued it. Oh, Goddess, forgive me."

**"The Goddess will not help you now."**

Her head whips to her daughter, who swallows nervously, ridding the foreign words from her mouth.

"What did you say?"

"I... I didn't..." Santana growls in frustration, stomping her foot on the ground and ejecting a geyser of white flame. "I say things before I think sometimes, that is the way it has always been."

"Not like this. Goddess, how could you have been so _stupid?_"

Defensive, Santana crosses her arms over her naked chest. The things in her back writhe and coil with her discomfort but she resists, keeping them concealed. "I did what I had to do."

"You defied the cycle!"

"What was I supposed to do, let her die?"

"Yes!"

Santana chokes on her rebuttal. "I— what?"

"It was her time, mija," Maria hisses, "you knew that. But you were greedy, and returned something that did not belong to you in the first place."

"She... no! She is my everything! You cannot expect me to release the one thing that gives me joy!"

"So you keep her for your own gain?"

"I—" Santana snarls and more fire flows, coming dangerously close to the wooden posts of Kaupang's homes. "Nobody wants to die, _Mami._"

"Do they want to live as a monster?"

Her hand flies out, the dark tendril pushing from her palm before she has thought to name the impulse, deflected at the last second by a bolt of blue. "Never say that about her!" she cries, rearing back to strike again. "Take it back!"

Santana tumbles back as a wave of her mother's power strikes her in the chest, staggering upright a few feet away. She clutches her broken shoulder, twisted awkwardly out of its socket, its placement radiating pain down her side and across her chest. Maria looks to be remorseful until the darkness shifts it back into position with an audible crunch and knits her bones anew; her face hardens into a disgusted snarl, the calming blue vanishing into mist.

"Maybe I was wrong," she mutters lowly. "Brittany is not the monster here."

Santana rolls her healed shoulder once, stretching out the new joint until it falls limply back to her side.

"You hit me," she says dumbly.

"I would have done it sooner if it had made you listen."

"You _hit_ me," she repeats angrily, clenching her fists tightly.

"I have warned you for so long about the darkness, but you ignore my teachings. Clearly, you know better than I." She shakes her head once, the sadness in the lines of her face evident only for the briefest moments before it dissipates. "Until you come to your senses, I will not be responsible for the abomination you have turned yourself into."

"An abomination is something that turns on their family!"

Yet Maria simply looks into Brittany's hut, her motionless body resting on the bed. "Then what does that make you?"

* * *

><p>Her world is darkness before light.<p>

It is a cacophony of screaming and crying and bleeding, floating through a body that does not want to be returned to existence. The oppressive weight on her chest smothers, and she drifts through one world and the next, visiting the elves and the dwarves in her sleep, climbing the branches of Yggdrasil only to tumble back to the ground. It is when her temporary home moans and howls under the weight of the snowstorm thrust upon them does she wake; a great sucking inhale that forces her upright, her wide eyes panicked in the dark.

"Where am—" Her hands roam all over her body, her palms running over her matted hair and tattered clothing, fingernails raking over scars both new and old. A creeping dread comes over her as she touches her stomach and her fingers feel the great cleave that had once taken her breath away, sewn up and shut tight but black as the dark, dark night.

"No," she moans, pressing her palm against her heart that thuds and her ribs that hurt, "no, why am I here? Not here, _please_—" A hand touches at her shoulder and she scrambles from her bed, her feet barely touching the floor before her knees buckle and she lands in a heap of furs and limbs.

She doesn't have to see her before she knows its Santana, her eyes blind in the dark, but tears run down her cheeks as she scrambles away and curls herself up tight, her back pressing against the freezing wooden walls as the other moves to aid her. "Don't _touch _me!" she screams, tugging at her limp hair, willing herself to unravel apart so she may return to the hall where she so rightfully belongs. "What did you do to me? Why did you bring me _back?!_"

Her lover swallows in the gloom, hands trembling. "I had to."

She cups her hand protectively, feeling the limp weight of fingers that should not have been returned. "No, you... I don't _belong_ here anymore, oh gods, not here... not when I saw it."

The swish of bare feet, the hiss of folding joints. "Saw what?"

"Valhalla!" She sobs and bangs her head on the wall, burying her face in her hands. "I saw Grandfather and Odinn and— and _Mother_, I saw my Mother, Santana! I remember her face now, her voice! You _took _her from me!"

Brittany feels Santana's discomfort but it is a mere nuance, a tick easily swept away by the tide of her own despair. "You will go back one day," she encourages, "but with me by your side. Is that not what you wanted?"

"I would have always seen you again!" Brittany shouts, her voice cracking before turning into a whisper. "We are bound, you know this—we will always find each other, b-but—" she slams her head against the wall again, the pain flashing bright behind her eyes, "nobody_ returns_ to Valhalla! I was there, and now I am here in a place I shouldn't be, i-in a body I shouldn't have..."

A small flicker of light illuminates the space, and Brittany turns her tear-streaked gaze upwards, squinting against the glow. Santana's face comes to light for the first time and she does not hold back her gasp. "What... what have you _done?_"

"Everything I have done, I did for you," she says earnestly, going to cup her hands before Brittany flinches away. "The battle is over, we have won."

But Brittany's vision darts in too many places at once; her naked skin, her onyx eyes, her stained lips. "What did you _do?_" she screeches, attempting to get up on her knees but simply falling over again on her side, a pang of agony travelling up her spine. "You used that bad magic after promising to get rid of it! You- you lied to me! You brought me back and turned me into a monster, and then you lied to me!"

Santana's whole expression drops, the light in her hand flickering for a moment. "No, I... I _had_ to, Britt, you were dead."

"I should have stayed dead! I was happy!"

"You were happier... without me?"

Brittany opens her mouth to rephrase but trails off as the tendrils erupt once again from Santana's back, heaving and pulsing with her lover's heartbeat, crawling along the walls and wrapping themselves around Santana's body. With the way her hair starts to float in the imagined wind she sees a demon in a person; a stranger in a girl. The face of another.

"What have you done to yourself?" she whispers softly. "I barely even recognize the girl I fell in love with."

Santana swallows thickly, almost deciding to shuffle forward if not for the way Brittany's whole body curls away from the movement. "You do not mean that. You are tired and hurt, I understand, but—"

"No, I _do_ mean that. I have stood by you while you fought with the demons in your head, but this... I am one of your demons now. You went too far."

"But... I saved you. I gave you another chance. Who else can say that?"

The anger in her tone washes like the undertow of a vicious current but Brittany responds in kind, her teeth flashing in the gloom that Santana sees through all too well.

"Say what? There _are_ no second chances, Santana, you should know that! We have a life and then we have a death... these things should not be able to be taken away!"

"You said you did not need to go to Valhalla anymore! You _said!_ Does your word mean nothing now too?"

"Maybe I did not _need_ to, but I was there regardless! You took away my eternity, my... my family! I have nothing now!"

"Nothing? Am I nothing to you?"

Brittany snarls and beats her temples with her curled palms, wishing away the taunting image of Valhalla and its golden trees lest it haunt her until her bones go to rot. "Stop saying things you know I don't mean!" she pauses as a tendril snakes over her foot, sticky and warm with her lover's heartbeat. "And what of your promises? Am I the only one not allowed to break trust?"

"It is not the same-"

"Why?!" she shrieks, wobbling to a crouch. In the darkness Santana sees her life force go red, a violent gale that swarms silently about her until, to her cursed gaze, it highlights the shadows underneath her cheekbones and makes her eyes _burn_. They take on the fleeting impression of wings and she knows the touch of a scorned valkyrja come to earth. "Why do you get to break the rules? Why do I have to be the one that suffers?"

"You think I do not suffer?" Santana sweeps out her arm and her new limbs bash a hole into the room, the howling blizzard outside creeping in and blowing soft flakes across her face. She barely notices the cold. "You think I enjoy this? That it is something I would choose if it was not the only choice? When I saw you there, dead and cold, this was the _only_ way."

"You chose it over me. That is answer enough."

"You aren't _listening! _I chose you! I'll always choose you!"

"Listening?" Brittany roars, her cheeks pinking. "I listened when you started having the nightmares! I listened when it would whisper in your head! I listened, no, I _held_ you as you'd stumble and fall and say things that would get you killed! I trusted you when you said you would rid yourself of it! You _dare_ tell me that I am the one that isn't doing the right thing?"

"Then return if you are so desperate to go back," Santana hisses, "because I am obviously not keeping you here."

Brittany looks at her silently for a moment. "You... you have no idea, do you?" She laughs hollowly, shaking her head until she bangs it once again against the wooden walls. "I keep forgetting you were not raised by my people, that they do not love you as I do... Valhalla is so much _more_ than a hall in another world, Santana, why do you not see that? It is something I have wanted my entire _life_, and you think I can simply _return_ like I could hop on a horse and be there by dawn?"

"I have earned my place, just like you! What if it was me bleeding in your arms? What would you have done? Left me to rot like you wished to?"

"The Goddess brings you back. We are not so lucky. If we return, do you know what they call us?" Brittany leans in closer, eyes wide and crazed. "_Damned._"

The word triggers something in her and all that anger comes back like a tidal wave, washing over until she is the beserkr returned, the rage of the battlefield once again humming through her veins in a directionless fury that devours. "Damned! Look what you did! We're both monsters now!"

Brittany watches from the floor as black tears make their way down Santana's cheeks, splashing to the dirt where they hiss and bubble to eat away the earth. Their connection throbs with her heartbreak, but Brittany simply buries her face in the ground and clenches her eyes shut, refusing to open them even as her lover hiccups on a sob and stumbles out of the room. Everything inside her screams to go fix this, to call her back and whisper apologies into her slime-slicked hair, but the greater animal part of her is betrayed and anguished and exhausted, still laden with the knowledge that she will never return to the fabled hall of myth.

"_I have found my Valhalla in you. I don't need another one."_

She groans low in her chest and rolls over, weakly kicking at the wall. She was to convince Odinn to allow Santana entrance, to show her the glory of her heritage, the duty of her calling... but it is squandered now, and she rests on the cold earth of Midgard, wasting away in a body that wants her no more. Never will she see Grandfather again, or her Mother...

Brittany does not know how long she weeps into the dirt, only that her nose is clogged and her eyes red by the time another set of kind hands coax her from the floor. She goes sluggishly, her head leaning on the person's shoulder, her good hand grasping at the one that worms between her own.

Maria is not her mother, but she is close and it will be enough.

Together they manage to fall back onto the furs and Brittany immediately gravitates to Maria's smaller frame, curling around her the best she can and burying her face in her bosom. The older woman strokes at her matted hair silently, running her fingers down her spine in a manner she always used to do for Santana so long ago.

"S-she t-took me-e-e," Brittany gasps out and Maria cradles her close, hushing her panicked breathing.

"I know, my child. We will fix this."

"_H-how_?"

At a loss for words, Maria simply shrugs and presses her lips to Brittany's sweaty forehead, waiting until the hitch in her breathing long begins to fade. The blizzard howls outside, and she has a brief pang of worry for her child out in the foul, freezing weather, but shakes it off quickly. _The darkness will not let its charge die from the snow_, she thinks bitterly, and instead comforts her other child in the best way she knows.

"Are you ready to stand?" Maria asks softly after listening to the snowstorm rage for some time. Brittany swallows thickly and shakes her head.

"M' too weak."

"I will help you."

Together, they manage to get her upright, her right arm slung heavily over Maria's shoulders. The two of them make their slow, lumbering way through the town that has gone dark and silent with the storm save for the fires puffing thick smoke out through the holes in their rooves. Fires twinkle through the cracks and they are drawn to the greatest one, clumsily shouldering their way through the wooden door and into the relative warmth of Betar's temporary home.

Silence falls as soon as they enter. The men that were chatting quietly see the two dusting themselves off and wordlessly make to leave, keeping a wide berth between them and the pair. Brittany watches as the men that had always acknowledged her despite their doubts avoid her eyes as they leave.

Betar, thankfully, is not so stiff.

He rushes to take her weight in his arms, her whole body sagging with relief at his warm embrace. She clings to his shirt as he lowers her down to the long bench they all lay upon, her body small and fragile under his bulk.

"How are you, my love?" he whispers softly, as if the sound would shatter her.

"I saw Mother," she says instead, uncaring of the way he startles. "And Grandfather. You can tell they are kin."

"You saw her? Was she—"

"She was happy," she sighs tiredly, "but she cried when I had to go."

Betar smiles shakily, petting his daughter's hair. "That sounds much like her."

Brittany shivers and Betar draws them closer to the flame, enclosing her hands in his own so that they may be licked by the cheery orange glow. He spies the black lines that run through her, turning her palm over so that it may be touched by the light. Brittany looks away as he runs his thumb over the seam that connects her two fingers and palm to the rest of her hand, the numb flesh barely twitching at his touch.

"Harald's champion chopped it off," she mumbles at his unspoken question, "so Santana put it back together again."

"She _what?_"

"I don't wish to talk about it." Her body turns so that she stares at the wall instead, the flame heating her back. During the time of the Endless Night almost all hours are nothing but blackness... the thought of Santana wandering out there, hurt and alone, pains her no matter how angry she may be. Her eyes close as she attempts to search through their connection, but the volatile slight still burns bright in the night and it lashes out, searing. She flinches away from it, swallowing once and retreating, vowing to try again once the initial wound has passed.

(How long must that take? Days, months, years?)

"What do you think is going to happen to Harald's men?" Maria asks, blowing away some of the snow that attempts to land on their fire. Their shelters went up in flames, charred remnants of smoking animal skins the only indication that it was once fit for service.

"Many will perish from the cold or their wounds," Betar replies heavily. "We have won this battle, but I feel it is a hollow victory."

Brittany startles slightly. "The king," she urges, raising herself the best she can. "Does the king live?"

The two others look at each other for a moment before giving a hesitant nod, but their expressions are grim. "He lives, but not much else." As he had rode away another had slain his horse, falling on his injured arm enough to temporarily incapacitate him. During the time unaccounted for he had received grievous head trauma—possibly from the hooves of his fallen steed—and had yet to wake despite the attempts of the elders. "Eirik leads the army in his stead."

Brittany grimaces. "That troll commands armies?"

"Tired, hurt armies," Betar reminds her gingerly. "He will be leading no attacks any time soon, especially not with this blizzard going the way it is."

"One of the elders says it will continue for days," Maria agrees with a hum, her worried eyes looking beyond the physical world, her fingers grasping tight at the pendant that hangs heavily around her slender neck. It burns still, but the stone grows dim.

A shuffling scratch swings the door to the longhouse open, and Brittany manages a smile as a sodden, furry form limps into the room. She opens her arms and Sandalio frantically bounds into them, licking all over her face in rough, broad strokes that wicks away all the dried sweat and tears from her skin. His wet nose nuzzles into her jaw and she scratches at his wet ears, allowing his bulk to press up against her chest and plonk down protectively.

"I'm glad you were out of harm's way," she says quietly, stroking her trembling hands down his coat. "I would not be able to bear burning another friend at the pyres."

He whines and buries his face in her neck, his hot breath tickling at her skin.

(Santana does the same, and she forcibly pushes the thought from her mind.)

"We should look for her if she does not return," Maria sighs worriedly, scratching at Sandalio's hind. "She does not know this land as well as you."

"She is a traitor," Betar mutters darkly, "the things she has done are enough to have her burned."

Brittany shushes him with a hand at his knee. "Please, father. She may have done terrible wrong, but... do not harm her. I love her still."

Betar sighs, and the four of them watch the flame go dim.

* * *

><p>Through wind and snow, Santana runs.<p>

The icy gust that rips at her naked skin is an afterthought, the trembling of her body as much from grief as from cold. No matter how far she blunders she can't rid herself of Brittany's haunted eyes glaring through her, following her in every swirl of snow or wave of branch. The agony in her voice as she begged to go back—to _die_—echoes in her head and rebounds until it all folds in on itself, the words warping until all the mantra becomes is a loop of _your fault your fault your fault. _

Why doesn't she understand? A world without Brittany is not a world worth saving. She would sooner cast herself back into Ataecina's revolving embrace than live without her, damned to wander without one half of an eternal flame. Her foot catches on a hidden root and she goes sprawling into the snow, the pang of her flesh finally felt through the numbness. Still, she lays in the white and sighs, watching as her exhale scatters snowflakes around her head.

**Get up, priestess.**

"Why?" she mutters petulantly, rolling over on her side so she may curl up and rest. The day has been so long and the trials many, one defeat after another, only growing until she buckles under their weight. Surely she deserves this rest, this quiet rest in the cold...

**Rise.**

Those _things_ snake from her back and pull her unwilling body upright, her whole frame drooping as gravity wins out once again. She looks up as they propel her forward, anchoring her to branches and rocks, crawling through the forest like a magnificent spider whose web has claimed the entire forest. Her toes brush against the new-fallen snow as it hoists her higher, her legs swinging faintly with the momentum.

"Where are we going?" she mumbles, glancing around for any markers. It should be time to go back now—night has long descended and the air grows colder than she has ever felt it, nipping at her numb ears and licking up her feet. The world is a sheet of white that obscures all but the faintest outline of that in front of her, its gale quickly filling in the tracks she would have long left behind. With a faint laugh, she realizes she's lost. Of all the things to go wrong... she toys with the idea of calling upon Brittany to be her guide, but the hurt rears up fast and scalding, bringing tears to her eyes, so she pushes it away.

She does not know where the darkness takes her, nor does she care. Together they traverse the forest in long gaits that have her swinging around in the air, leaping over a fjord or two whose bottoms vanish in the blizzard. Her teeth chatter a song as she feels herself slow, the tendrils tentatively searching in the distance for an object. With a start she realizes she can _feel_ their touch skate along a rock face as surely as if it were her own hands that stroked the stone, the slick tentacles worming their way into an opening and pushing her through.

Santana slumps to the ground, the freezing rock almost warm under her numb body, her fingers curling upon the floor. She makes no move to rise, rolling on her back instead. Perhaps she could remain here as a hermit or a witch, selling her abilities to those in need. But who would want them after what she did? Even her lover, the very person who _promised_ to stand by her side, cast her away like some sort of monster. The hammer pendant around her neck feels so very heavy, as if the weight of Brittany's sorrow rests within it.

**She does not understand.**

The priestess rolls about on the ground, crushing her hands to her ears in the foolish notion that it will erase the sound. It speaks in a million tongues, a thousand spirits coming from the grave to whisper into her head. "You will not turn me against her!"

**She has turned against you.**

"No!" A flash of light; the explosion from the flame impacting the wall sends shards of stone flying, slicing at her skin and letting her ruby-red blood stain the rock. The tendrils lap it up eagerly, spreading themselves over her wounds where the flesh returns instantly. Santana tries to rip them away and bear witness to the scars that make her human, but they are erased before she can pry them off. "What have you done to me?" she whimpers, curling up into a tiny ball.

**I have made us One.**

But there is a discrepancy, a rift. So long as she hurts and cries over her warrior, they will never be Whole. It knows this as it knows all things, but cannot will her heart to so give up on the person that brings light into her world—instead it strokes its tendrils along her cheek, wicking away the moisture from her shining eyes. Mortals are weak, flawed things, but it will make her strong.

Ever so gently do the tendrils wrap around her wrists, coaxing her upright until she kneels, head hung down. Her thoughts bounce in a chaotic motion that refracts into its own, cluttering the space where only emptiness should be. In almost every notion resides blue eyes or golden hair or even long fingers, stroking and caressing in a phantom touch. It sees their fate drawn out before them, their lines intertwining until it is one braid, forever bound tight and unyielding. Its shadows pick at those knots that hold them together until the very beginnings of slack form at the tip—too much and the Fates will know, but little by little...

**Come, little one. My embrace heals all wounds.**

She barely makes a sound as more tendrils curl over the jut of her hip and the underside of her chest, winding around and around until they join and she can feel their presence in every breath. Others lift her by the ankles until she is suspended above the ground, connected by a matrix of tendrils that pulse with her heartbeat. It snakes over her thighs, under the soles of her feet, crawling around her forehead and behind her ears.

**Sleep, and let us be Whole.**

The darkness spreads until the entirety of her is covered with it, expanding over her eyes until her world is hidden from her. Perhaps just a little while...

It courses down her throat and nose and ears until she is filled with the Old One, immobilized in its embrace, its senseless quiet lulling her into a dreamless sleep.


	26. Chapter 26

A/N: I know, I know, I'm running late. I wanted to do this earlier but school happened to both me and LeMas, and then I celebrated being on earth seventeen years which really isn't that great an accomplishment, so I got behind. But a lot of thought has been put into his chapter, and this is why I'm up at 1 30am on a Wednesday night posting it for you now. I swore to myself that I'd get this done within a month and I haven't gone to sleep yet, so to me it's still the 27th and a victory. I know some of you may not like this chapter, but I hope most of you will. Enjoy~

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 26<strong>

**would you leave me **

**if I told you what I've become**

** December 12th, 912**

_At his command you and your brother spiral from the skies in a dizzying whorl of endless cloud and bitter air that brushes at your tucked wings and dries your open eyes, tumbling through all nine worlds as you must every dawn. The fires of Muspelheim lick at your claws and the frost of Niflheim freezes your hollow bones, but you do not falter as the jotnar raise their massive heads and watch your passing as they do every morn. Hel gives you pretty things and you croak your content as her skeletal fingers smooth down your precious feathers until they gleam and you rise and fall, rise and fall, until only one world remains. This place was once simply a petty world of men and their troubles, but now it is full of intrigue as the primal god touches the earth with new hands and the realm of dream trembles under the weight of their consciousness. _

_ Your wings flare out and you speed across snowy mountains and deep valleys filled with the blizzard that rages even still and covers the blood that has soaked into its structure. Those without a name slumber soundlessly under the white, and you feel their mind that has long left their body yearning for a proper burial—but war is unforgiving and leaves little glory in its wake. The one that truly knows what it is to lose is here in Midgard, the one with the golden glow and sad halo that hangs upon her shoulders like an unwanted shroud. _

_ She is obscured in the flames of the pyres that reach up into the great overcast sky, but you know her as well as your master, her presence calling calling calling until you are helpless to resist. The presence that taken up residence inside your eyes perks at her silhouette, revealed slowly as you alight upon a snowy branch. The weakness in her spirit is strange—not only for the one you cradle now so close to your heart, but the other that stoops over the snow and sweats toxic into her clothing. She is still so fragile, ripped away from her home in the clouds, but her eyes are grim and bitter as her blood's body is placed upon the roaring fires and burned to a breath of air._

_ She knows he is happy, but she is no longer. _

_ The other in you whispers a desire you have no intention of denying; the broken warrior barely blinks as you and your brother perch twin upon her shoulders, your beak worrying at a strand of loose hair. Her smile is faint and she murmurs her thanks to your master that you will carry back to him on the tides of dusk. _

_ The priestess that guards her side vigilantly looks at you until she must see the reflection of the other in your eyes, for her jaw tightens in disbelief a moment before the two of you vanish once again in search of another._

_ You rise north and the wind screams past as it wards you away, over the glittering bridge that binds Asgard and Midgard together and through the dense forests that remain forever green despite the eternal winter that settles over the farthest reaches of this world. You and your companion follow the brother lost in his grief and his footsteps that make great gouges in the soft moss of the earth, weighed down by the heavy bones of his charge. Your wings cast shadows, and you burst into open air as you spot his form kneeling upon a glacier, his hand passing over his brother's lax brow. _

_ Death claims many without remorse, but it is rare that such a magnificent being falls without a sound; the one still living cries and it echoes throughout all nine worlds until all are witness to his sorrow, even the gods who take pity and whisper words to allow the glacier to wrap around his deadened limbs. From ice he was born and so too will he return as his flesh melts away into spring water that drip drip drips below, feeding into the mountains and letting the elk ingest his wasted strength. The presence within you mourns in the best way it is able—as a deep and guilty sadness—even as the glacier swells with this offering, groaning and hissing as it spirals up to the sun. The brother watches its peak disappear into the clouds and touches the ice that remains of his kin._

_ Silently, he turns away. His eyes of blue fire burn resolve in the quiet night as his lonely steps return to Midgard and back to the place where his brother had begun to call home. The mountain of ice watches him go._

* * *

><p><strong>December 23th, 912 <strong>

_The presence that lurks within you has established a link between your soul and the one with the haunted eyes. You feel her sorrow weigh on your wings even as you sail to other realms, your mind's eye always watching and waiting, whispering and wondering over every little movement that she does. Her physical strength may slowly be returning to her wasted limbs, but her mental fortitude is still dim, plagued by shadows and visions and strange, unnatural things. She has inherited a different kind of burden; the nightmares that keep her tired mind awake are nothing but blood and steel and sunken, sallow faces of what used to be before her axe erased them entirely. _

_ Those of the village trust her no longer and whisper as she passes. Word of her fall has reached the ears of all and they wish not to touch lest they be damned as she be damned, condemned to wander in search of another death as glorious as the first. Only the priestess opens her arms and the one she had wounded so long ago, the mother with the golden hair. Together they cradle her broken spirit and lift her when her legs fail, feeding and bathing her, gently murmuring. She does not have the energy to care for much at all, but manages a smile. _

_ The slave boy comes sometimes and you see the pain in his face as he touches the husk of his friend, clasping their shaking hands together. Now that the cursed blizzards have stopped howling and left the world in a soundless blanket of white, the men have begun to repair their shattered world in a slow and steady way that only mortals are able, every stroke of their hammer sure. She begs him to search for her other half, but she has disappeared into the void that winter brings. _

_ (You sense their thoughts and desires—those that wish to find the fallen one do not wish her well.) _

_ Her father knows this as he knows many things, but his anger is not something that is easily tamed, nor forgiven. You pull the fury from his expression as more are unearthed from the frozen snow with skulls of grinning white and insides ravaged by blackness, until his spirit is frothing at the mouth from the horrors his people have endured. Death and draugar are not easily forgotten, and he is torn between his family and his duty. _

_ It is the horse men with their glittering armor that search the snows for any traces of the one they knew from moons ago, the weathered one with skin of paper searching through the Unseeable for a hint of the girl left behind. But the Old One is cunning, and though you feel its breath rustle your feathers it remains hidden from her all-seeing eyes, and its laughter echoes in her ears when she sleeps._

_ You give all this to your master, whose frown wrinkles the lines of his ancient face; he watches the broken one toss in her tortured dreams and sends his spells to soothe her tormented thoughts until she stills in her borrowed bed, curling into the older priestess until all that leave her mouth are soft whimpers of sound. Her blood watches from above with sad, sad eyes, and her mother looks away in mourning for what could have been._

* * *

><p><strong>January 2nd, 913 <strong>

_ The sun is bright this morn, and it sets your glossy feathers alight as you follow the deep tracks scored into the powdery snow that lead into the deep forests, reaching to the skies with their skeletal fingers. It has been some time since the broken one had left the accusing eyes of those she used to call friends, and her trail is marred by camps and fires set along the way to ward off the bitter winter chill. You sense her fatigue as you sense all things in her now, her weathered body unwilling to shoulder such strain as she trains it to work once again. _

_ She grows to welcome you now. Your perch on her shoulder is always open, and she does not grumble as you nip at her ear until she gives you a small piece of reindeer meat from her pouch. Little has found its way into her pack save for her own supplies—the trees are quiet and still with no animals to speak of, and you feel the unease in the brush as the Old One murmurs from the void. Its thoughts grow louder and more disjointed as the presence in your chest loosens; you know it is nearing completion, the thing that you feel on the winds and taste in the water. _

_ Those across the fields that shiver in makeshift shelters grow restless with the strange ways of the land. Perhaps they do not know the gods as they should, but they know the earth, and know how their soldiers go cold and hungry in this cruel winter, how their leader broods endlessly over the death of his kin. Many had said they saw demons on the field of likes they had never known; women different but the same, each heralding death of their own. He knows of one but not enough of the other and seeks them both the way a slave seeks freedom only to be denied, denied, his soldiers turning away lest they return to finish the job they had started. _

_ (You hear their thoughts and their dreams, their nightmares plagued by blonde hair and dark hands and blackness that eats straight through the bone.) _

_ The broken one makes tracks that leave the village further and further behind. She does not speak of it, but you know she seeks to find her other in this wasteland that her home has become, searching every nook and every hollow for naught. Their connection stands stagnant, and the loss is almost staggering; your bones bow under the weight of it. _

_ You know but cannot tell of the fallen one in your chest and how she watches the broken one with what little thought she possesses. You know but cannot tell of the distant cave where she is hidden away. You know but cannot tell of the way she floats from you as she stirs from sleep with a new body and mind that will devour sun and stars in its fervor. _

_ Fate has come to pass, and Midgard will fall silent as the one that is Whole wakes once again._

* * *

><p><strong>January 4th, 913<strong>

A measured exhale followed by the steady draw of a bowstring. Wind rustles the spindly branches of the naked trees and swirls the eddies in the snow, but the single animal nosing about for food pays no mind. Its soft muzzle brushes away the powder in hopes of anything buried underneath, but the snowfall was long and all remains hidden under a thick layer of white.

Too far. Unsure arms tremble under the strain of keeping taut and the string is slowly relaxed, accompanied by a slow, hesitant step forward. The wooden slabs upon the snow glide soundlessly, cutting thin tracks into the ground, propelling their charge forward. Another inhale, another draw. Closer, closer...

The wind howls unexpectedly and a branch snaps from its precarious perch, weighed down by ice and snow. Startled, the animal bolts; moments later an arrow imbeds itself in the trunk where it used to stand.

"Fuck!" Brittany hisses angrily, making her way over and yanking the arrow from the bark. The only game seen all day scared away by the whims of fate.

Sandalio whines in sympathy from where he presses up against her thigh, his damp face rubbing against the thick wool of her trousers. The days have been long and cold in the forests for both of them; his fur, forever damp, fluffs with snow caught in the hairs. His Mistress always makes the Bright-Hot in the night that glows so brightly it warms him to his bones, but she never seems too happy. It has the wrong color, she says. (His world is muted greys and yellows—perhaps they see something else?)

Brittany scratches absently at his ears, her fingers cold inside her rabbit mittens. Her pack is light, absent of game—so far, she's barely been able to catch enough for the both of them. It might have to do with the way her body has not yet returned to its former glory, but she has the suspicion that the silent woods have more to do with her failure. Her breathing echoes amidst the trunks that look too much like corpses, bounding in all directions, coming back until she feels watched by a million empty eyes.

(Sometimes there are figures flitting from one hollow to the next, forever whispering, forever following. She calls to them, but they vanish like smoke puffing out of a tiny flame.)

"Looks like we have to go home, huh?" she mutters sourly, adjusting the bindings on her boots. Home is no longer what it used to mean—those who scarcely tolerated her differences have no qualms about voicing how they really felt all along. Even those who had grown to accept her charm and talent have turned their backs to leave her with nothing at all. She hears the whispers, no matter how much she tries to ignore them: cursed, plagued, damned.

Not for the first time, she wishes Santana had left her to die.

The skis attached to her feet propel her effortlessly through the thick powder as they manoeuver their way through the trees, Sandalio loping at her side. For the past month she had tried calling to Santana time and time again, begging for any response at all. Maria had tried to console her, citing the blizzard for the disconnect, but she can't be fooled. It takes something so much bigger than that to hide her away somewhere even Brittany is unable to sense her heartbeat. (But she knows it's there. Slow, almost non-existent. Sleeping.) Her head is a resounding mix of emotions that beg her to die but demand her to live, screaming and teetering until she's unsure which to obey. She is a phantom in the body of the buried, and surely Santana could make sense of these new voices inside her head, but she's not _here_ and she made her this way, and now—

Brittany shakes her head to dislodge the fury she feels coming, creeping up inside like a disease. She hates being angry; it reminds her of the battlefield and all those people who fell under her impartial blades, spurting arcs of crimson blood like sea spray splashing on her cheeks, but the rage comes so swiftly now. The voices whisper and the ghosts cry and she feels like screaming until her throat rips apart.

But she doesn't, not anymore. Her anger bubbles and seethes but it rarely finds itself escaping the confines of her chest, smouldering through her eyes and ears instead. The first few weeks were the worst, when she'd fall down doing simple things like walking; Maria would pick her up like a child throwing a tantrum and place her back in her bed that was more like a prison, watching until she exhausted herself. Perhaps she feels pity, or some misguided sense of protectiveness—either way, Brittany is grateful for her help. Gods know her father wouldn't do the same.

Her expression darkens and she gives a particularly violent push with her skis, prompting Sandalio to run and catch up. He loves her, she knows, but he too has begun to sense the wrongness within her. She's surprised it took him this long.

One day he'll cave to the villagers and send her away. It's just a matter of when.

Wasn't that what they always wanted, anyway? Many of the elders never truly accepted her past a grudging respect for her skill—once a woman, always a woman—and now her fall from grace gives them the reason they need to show their true faces.

She forces her mind to go blissfully blank for the grueling hours spent gliding through the snow, her empty pack rattling on her back. The forests seem peaceful now with the fight at a stand-still, but the facade simply cloaks the rotten core underneath, pristine white snow shrouding the problem from sight. Massive, ancient trees groan as the darkness within weighs in their veins, dragging down their branches and snapping them from their wide limbs. Animals cry out nervously in the night—those that remain. Almost all life has vanished, seeking asylum from an invisible foe.

Along the way she checks her snares, each one coming up empty until the last. A small bird shrieks as she closes her fist gently around its little body, whispering thanks as her fingers snap its neck with a sharp twist. Her knife opens its belly and she greedily gulps down the liver, still raw and slimy, the warmth of its body steaming into the air. Its strength bleeds into her as she ties its corpse to her belt and sets off against with renewed strength.

It's not too long until she glides into Kaupang, skin slick with sweat, traveling across the roads that so many other feet have followed. The town slowly begins to repair itself from the fires, and warriors wander about with bandages bound all around their bodies, aiding the best they can. A few of the children part when she passes, but apart from that, all she receives as acknowledgement are the eyes that follow her in her father's home.

The longhouse had been deemed a loss and thralls knock down the burnt timbers with great hammers, its charred splinters raining down on their skin. In time another one will be built, but for now resources are being diverted to more important things. She unbinds herself from her skis and nudges open the door until the warmth from the flame envelops her tired body.

Those that were previously talking quite amicably fall silent as she awkwardly places her sodden coat to dry in the quiet, unwrapping her little bird from her belt and placing it on the table. They mutter amongst themselves and vacate until only a select few remain; her father, a few elders, a woman she does not know, and Finngeirr.

The lattermost makes her eyebrows arch in surprise—he looks worse than she does, skin ruddy in some places but pale in others, his eyes muddled and distant. The blow to his head must have done more damage than anticipated, and as he goes to rise his balance wobbles until the woman by his side rights him again.

"What a pleasant surprise," Brittany murmurs placidly, gaze sweeping over the boy who saved her life. Her hand throbs in phantom reminder and she hesitates in taking off her gloves, knowing of the way his eyes narrow in on the thick black seam across her skin.

Betar's stare warns her to be nice but she pays him no mind, delicately picking up the little bird and beginning to pluck its feathers. All is silent for a few minutes as she casts them into the flames where they curl up and wither into nothing, mere specks of black char upon the logs. In an effort to inject some form of cheeriness into the somber scene, her father claps her on the back, nearly sending her pitching into the fire.

"Where is the rest of your game, Bretagne?" he asks, looking around for her pack. The way it droops in on itself bodes no good news.

"This is my game," she sighs, clearing the rest of the feathers from the cut through its stomach. "I saw perhaps a single deer my entire time, and a few rabbits. All of them from a distance."

He frowns at the tiny thing in her hand, no good for more than a couple mouthfuls. "Were you using your skis?"

"I know how to hunt, father," Brittany mutters irritably, pulling the waste from her bird with perhaps a little more force than necessary. "They have all been scared away. The darkness hurts the trees, too."

"I saw what it can do," Finngeirr interrupts, his eyes wide and haunted. "The animals are smart things for leaving as soon as possible."

_You were unconscious the entire time,_ Brittany thinks, but keeps her mouth shut.

"Why am I here?" she asks bluntly. "You only want to talk when it's something important."

Betar cringes and clears his throat. "The war might not be won, but, ah, the battle has been completed. You have a promise to keep."

Brittany pauses mid-pull, frowning. Surely he didn't think she was serious.

But he senses her incredulity. "I know it may not be the best of things in light of recent events, but a wedding could bring cheer back into the village."

"Wait," Finngeirr interjects, his voice rising until it cracks a little. "You still expect me to marry that... that _thing?_"

"Finn," the woman scolds, but he shrugs her off.

"She's been thrown out of Valhalla! Who knows what other curses she has hanging from her? I mean, just... look at her hand!"

Brittany tucks her hand under her opposite arm with a scowl.

"Maybe whatever that Iberian witch used on her is still there, huh? She might make my dick fall off if I even so much as try to put it in her."

Betar's jaw clenches so hard Brittany fears his teeth will break, and the woman she believes to be his mother sighs heavily, wiping her hand down her brow. He looks at her then, his sneer holding an agitated edge. "Don't you hear things now, Piersson? Is that why you talk to yourself?"

"Right now, I hear nothing but your complete horseshit," she snaps. "I doubt you have any cock to lose in the first place."

"Bretagne!"

She ignores her father's scold, narrowing her eyes at the figure in front of her. "I have seen the Great Hall, I know what kind of warriors lay within its doors. They have no room for boys trying too hard to be men."

He sputters, lunging forward a moment before he wobbles and his mother must catch him. Flustered, he pushes her touch away. "And you are any better? You are _worthless_ now, Bretagne! You should be begging me to wed you."

"Why should I? I never wanted you to begin with."

"Both of you, please." Betar places himself between them, like breaking visual contact will help any with the venom pouring into the room. "You have promises to keep."

"Yes, well," Brittany stands up abruptly, throwing a sardonic half-smile in her father's direction. "Promises are meant to be broken, aren't they?"

She makes it perhaps five paces out the door before a hand grabs her wrist and spins her around, bringing her close with her livid father. "Bretagne, what are you trying to pull here? That boy saved your _life._"

She yanks her wrist away. "He did nothing of the sort. Stórhríð saved me from that blade, not that it made much difference in the end."

"He gave you enough time for Stórhríð to appear. Show a little gratitude."

"Gratitude for what? _Saving_ me just to have both my ear and part of my hand cut off? Or letting me die impaled on a sword instead of having a swift death? There is _nothing_ to be grateful about in this situation."

"Bretagne, if you talked to him—"

"Has talking given us anything? Has it!?" Her cheeks flush, ruddy with the rage she thought she had sealed away. "I have _tried_ to tell you that I do not consent to this, but you ignore me like I am nothing more than a thrall you can push around! If this... this _affliction_ keeps him far away from me, I will gladly keep the voices and the nightmares and _everything _else it gives me!"

His expression hardens. "What in the world has Santana done to the Bretagne I know?"

"The Bretagne you know is _dead_, and she is _never_ coming back."

They stare at each other until Betar turns away, his eyes suspiciously wet. "Go to Maria before you say other things you will come to regret."

Recognizing the tone from her youth, Brittany mumbles her assent and stomps away, ignoring her bird now burnt over the fire and her various items still scattered about. She'll get them back soon enough.

Maria's hearth smoulders when she enters—the priestess has taken to sharing a space with Eyja, now that her own room burned to the ground in the fires. The two compliment each other perfectly; unlike her daughter, Maria is nearly as impeccably clean as her host.

(Their bed still lies in disarray from the night before the war. Brittany hasn't found the heart to remove her imprint from the furs.)

The rich smell of cooking meat wafts when she opens the door and she barely notices Maria hunched over the flames, nearly tripping over her crouching form in her haste to peer into the pot. It's not yet ready, but even the sight of the thin broth makes her mouth water in a twin expression with her faithful hound.

Maria chuckles, stirring the vegetables around a little. "Hungry?"

"Starving," she replies, seating herself the long wooden bench that juts out of the wall. "Father made me burn the only game I found."

"He made you, did he?" Maria turns to rummage about, handing Brittany a bowl of scraps from the earlier carcass that she quickly stuffs in her mouth, unmindful of the fat she sucks off the bone. "Do your hands randomly burst into flames too?"

Brittany scowls the best she can around her mouthful, allowing Sandalio to eagerly lick her fingers. "I wish. Many of my problems would be solved if I could just singe the tongue right out of Finngeirr's mouth."

Maria clucks her tongue, lightly bopping Brittany on the nose with her spoon. "You sound like Santana."

"I was around her enough." Suddenly sullen, she stuffs another handful into her mouth. Maria sighs and wipes off the stew residue that lingers on her skin.

"Everything will turn out; you'll see." Wary of the way Brittany's eyes have begun to darken, she instead ladles the stew into her bowl. "Now, what is this business with the boy?"

Uncaring of the way it scalds her tongue, Brittany furiously chews the stringy meat and loses herself for a few moments in the salty stew. It's been a while since she had warm meat, stuck out in the forests as she's been. "'Ather shtill wan'ed me t' marry him," she mumbles out, dribbling a bit of broth onto the floor. She makes a face, but Sandalio is quick to clean up. "We both refused. Him a bit more... um, loudly than me."

"What did he say?"

She pokes at the stew in her bowl. "If he tried to bed me, whatever curse Santana used would make it fall off, just like how I fell from Valhalla. The usual."

"That seems like no true tragedy," Maria mutters, earning a ghost of a smile from her companion. "And remember, you did not fall from Valhalla, you were taken. There is a great difference."

"Not to anyone here. I'm damned all the same."

"Maybe not to them, but you have to believe it yourself. If you do, they might begin to follow."

"But... what if I _am_ damned?" Brittany bites her lip, her eyes shifting to the flickering shadows that could hold any number of phantoms. "Whatever Santana did to me, Maria, it... it _broke_ me. My head is wrong. I hear things like she did, I _see_ things like she did. They follow me everywhere, even outside in the forest."

"Is it just you?"

Brittany steals a glance to her companion. "No, he sees them too. I think."

But the things that followed Santana, taunting and hissing, are not the same that appear to Brittany. Sometimes, when she slept, she could glimpse into her lover's mind, witness the twisted things that invaded her blackened dreams and crept over her cold feet. What appear before Brittany are whispers of a human being that float listlessly and speak in slurred tongues that she was never meant to hear, sparing her nary a glimpse before drifting away.

Perhaps... Maria remembers the restless dead that sometimes roamed the plains of her home, disturbing the horses in the night. Sometimes they simply did not see Ataecina and her open arms, but rarely did they deny her outright, angrily inhabiting the rivers and rocks until their ire was soothed. A flicker of silver passes by her eye, and Maria watches Brittany flinch away from the wisp that brushes a strand of gold hair from her face.

A warrior is simply a spell-caster of the physical, shielded from the harshness of the spiritual through a thick barrier that firmly separates the two worlds in their mind. Only those born with magical affinity can so peer into the void as they please—but the touch of such an old god could disrupt the balance that keeps them apart. Who knows what kind of a hole the Old One tore in its passing?

Maria's pensive expression does not bode well.

"Can you fix me?"

Maria's eyes narrow. "You are not broken, Bretagne."

"Then can you at least, um... can you call me Brittany?"

"Why?"

"I told my father that Bretagne is dead, and... I think I was telling the truth."

* * *

><p><strong>January 6th, 913<strong>

The first sliver of wakefulness comes, something akin to a gentle wave breaking across a ship's bow.

She feels the coldness all around her, limbs wrapped separately in its embrace. It extends further now, into the depths of herself, freezing her still lungs and slowing her sluggish heart. Her thought is slow and disjointed as she slips back into the realm of dream.

...

The second comes, and with it the taste of the earth, the faintest teasings of air rushing past dry lips and parched tongue. Her vision moves beyond her body and she sees a cave with a heart of darkness, a matrix of black seething and pulsing in its shadowed core. The mass in the center twitches and she watches her own mouth open, the blackness rushing outwards to expose her cheeks to the air.

But the darkness whispers _not yet,_ and she feels herself fading once again, falling under its influence as the blackness swallows her.

...

The third time is the final time.

It creeps from her mouth again, pulling back from her nose and eyes and picking itself from her hair, coursing upwards to expose her torso to the hard ground. The chill of winter licks across her bare skin, and she shudders in her prison.

Her sight returns, and she sees the faint outlines of the rock floor, the dips gathering snow and slush in the shadows. The tendrils gently unwrap themselves from her limbs, curling back into themselves as they lower her slowly to the floor. Her knees touch the damp rock as she kneels, kept upright by their guiding presence around her shoulders. The entrance to the cave is blindingly bright, swirls of almost glowing snow whispering past the mouth and laying in large piles across the land. She frowns, swallowing against her sandpaper throat.

One tendril worms its way into a little puddle of melted snow, swelling as it absorbs the moisture, until it can prod at her lips with the offering. Reluctant, Santana opens her mouth, acquiescing further once it dribbles freezing water across her dry tongue. The process repeats until she can think of something other than her thirst, finally taking a look around.

She scarcely remembers the month before and certainly not where she is now, fractures of a dream presented as a memory coming to her from the eyes of another. She remembers the nine worlds, and Hel's skeletal fingers brushing a body not her own, those eyes seeking out Stórhríð who mourns even now for his brother in the reaches of Utgard. Her head pounds and her body shivers from a cold it does not yet feel.

Her fingers touch fabric and then flesh upon the floor, cold and stiff, waxy for the days spent exposed. There is another with her whom death has already claimed, its skin as crackly as old vellum. In the darkness her eyes cut away she sees the gape of the body's belly, guts torn and strewn across the floor, desiccated and dry. No animals have dared venture into her home to gnaw at the tough remnants.

She runs her touch over his tunic and tugs at the fabric in an attempt to pull it over his head, the white linen rustling ever so slightly. With a grunt of exasperation she tugs again and instead pulls a strip of it straight from the seam, clutching the ruined portion in her fist. Pain dances ever so lightly over her hand, and she realizes she has cut herself on the claws she has grown in her mind's absence, pushing into the tender flesh of her hand. She pulls them from herself, and the skin knits anew once more, leaving her with nothing but a ragged scrap of fabric.

Overwhelmed, she feels the tendrils take it from her and drape it over her hips so that the fabric turns into a ragged skirt that brushes against the backs of her thighs as she rises to her feet, the rest of his tunic torn and unusable. The tendrils give her the staff that had been resting in the shadowed dip of the cave, her beads illuminating the space in an eerie black light.

_What happened?_ she asks the Old One, but receives no answer save the echo of her words. Its presence is ever-reaching and all-encompassing but it is... not gone, no. She feels it around her lungs and heart and eyes. Hiding? No, not that either. Dormant, perhaps. It still sounds wrong, but her addled brain whispers for nourishment that she cannot deny, and she loses the thought entirely.

Her bare feet crunch along the snow as she sinks to her knees in the untouched powder, running her hands along the frozen bark of guardian trees. Her new nails leave deep scores but she pays them no mind, eyes flickering about the empty forests in an attempt to find her next meal. Each heartbeat pounds in her ears, and she knows which tree holds the little squirrel cowering from the cold or the bird caught in the storm, but it is not those she wants, no—a louder heartbeat calls to her, hidden in the copse of skinny firs. A wolf, separated and alone, its howl speaking of questions and confusion. She hears it as clearly as she would those who speak the human tongue, and hears her stomach rumble its answering call. Her mouth waters as she feels its heat on the cold winds.

Her foot breaks the crust of snow and its howl cuts off at the sound, hackles rising, anxious and alert. Santana growls under her breath, and the tendrils that have not yet retracted wind themselves into the trees and lift her aloft, her feet leaving the snow as she travels closer to her prey. A flash of fur is seen between the trees before it spots her, and a rumbling laugh spills from her open lips as the fear blooms in those majestic amber eyes.

Her new limbs grasp the cowering trees and she surges forward as the wolf turns to run, one hand raising until a tendril erupts from her palm and curls around its prey. The animal yelps, panicked, and she hoists it in the air as one would trapped wildfowl.

"Not fast enough, little dog," she breathes softly, tentacles wrapping around the wolf in such a constricting embrace it can do little other than struggle. She sees the last glimpse of its terrified eyes before the darkness courses over like water and devours it, squeezing so tight she feels the vibration of its cracking ribs reverberate through the tendril and into herself, its blood coming from its ears and mouth that is soaked in and greedily absorbed. As its heart goes still Santana takes the red life from its veins and pulls it into her own, feels the warmth flush through her frozen body until the world snaps into such clarity that the few minutes prior felt like she was underwater. Snared in her dark web, even the heartbeat of the earth bows to her power.

She brings its body closer, running her fingers through the snarled knots of its fur. A youngling, no more than a winter old. Its coat reminds her of the robe she used to wear before it got ripped away.

Her tendrils writhe and she touches the point of its fangs frozen into an eternal snarl—she's seen that expression once before on another, cowering in a dark corner of a room with eyes like a stranger. Her memory floods back in the month spent trapped in the body of another, watching her faithful companion mourn just as his mistress mourns, pressing warm and comforting into her lonely side. She remembers—

_Brittany._

Santana throws her mind outwards, uncaring of how the world trembles at the explosion of power. She soars over the cover of the trees and spirals through the ether, chasing the thread that she still feels despite their distance. Her eyes run over healing Kaupang; the crippled enemy; the lonely giant making his way back to fight; even the centaurs, Quinn's armour glinting in the sun. But they are not the one she wants, no, and as she descends upon her destination, her heart catches heavy in her throat.

Brittany, form wavering only slightly through her disjointed eyes, laughs as she throws the stick high into the air, clapping when Sandalio catches it with a flourish. Her eyes crease into a smile and the whites of her teeth shine a beacon in the coming dusk of the Endless Night, her companion sprinting over to drop his prize by the other figure who stoops to pick it up. Hood fallen from her shoulders, she sees the smile in her mother's expression as readily as if she was wearing it herself, taking the given stick and whipping it away for the dog to catch. They grin at each other, content, and the sight makes Santana burn.

_Already found a replacement, I see._

Does Brittany not see all she's sacrificed for her? Her body, her mind, her soul—all sent to die for this one girl who can still be _happy_ while Santana herself aches for just the phantom of her touch? It's selfish to assume she would be weeping for her to return, mourning her as she mourns her grandfather, but surely she could be looking, searching for her? Winter has sunk its teeth into the land and she _knows_ at least a moon has passed—where was she all this time?

She hovers closer, almost as if intent to ask her just that. Darkness casts where she floats and the shadows of the trees warp upon themselves until they become demons of another place, twisted and gnarled with cackling mouths and spindly fingers. One strokes at Sandalio's fur and he stiffens until every part of his body vibrates and shakes with tension, his pearly white teeth bared into a snarl so familiar. Brittany falters and looks to him and his foaming mouth in concern, speaking something Santana cannot hear - the boom of Brittany's heart is a cannon in her ears and she _knows_ she can sense the same, their conjoined pulse thudding in time once again like a clash of swords wrapped in felt. Yet she does not look to Santana and where she waits but instead to the _dog_, his barks cutting through the still evening air, his terror radiating until it poisons all around it.

Santana's presence reaches now, grasps for Brittany with needy hands, but her lover remains frozen in indecision between the creeping sense of _wrong_ curling up her spine and her companion putting himself into an untameable frenzy. Her hesitancy stirs the flames smouldering in Santana's belly - a mutt takes precedence over her? A mutt that she kept and loved and cherished, a mutt that turned _against_ her when she needed it the most? She knows Brittany can sense it; there is a shifting at the back of her mind, a scraping of something wounded and festering, something impossible to ignore.

Her anger dims the already setting sun, and her warrior stalls for a moment to look around, stick held limply in her hand. No sound comes to her ears, but she feels Brittany's disbelief as their minds touch for the first time in what feels like eternities, the electric brush still there after weeks of silence. But her hurt burns bright and Brittany's message is deflected, her celestial fists that batter against her shield harmless. She turns from her former companion with a heavy swallow and falls back into herself, still feeling Brittany's desperation hammering against her bruised consciousness. Other voices join the cacophony—Eyja and Maria and even Sophias, calling to her, but she closes her eyes and erases them all.

A temporary bandage placed over a sucking wound, but it will hold for now. The echoes of their cries speak softly to her, but she ignores them, stumbling as she falls from her web. The wolf thumps lifelessly at her side and she dares not look into those glassy eyes lest she find something else that seeks to harm her.

The wind chills, but she hardly feels the sting across her bare skin as she slogs her way through the thick snow. Her tendrils have retracted for now, resting heavy in the cavity of her back, and she feels them coil under her skin like invasive serpents. Their weight should be unsettling, but their cold warmth gives her a degree of comfort in this world gone awry.

Somewhere in her head she can feel Brittany screaming, throwing herself at the barrier she has raised, but she refuses to cave. She remembers all the things she said and the hurt comes back, searing hot, not allowing her to crumple first. Let her be the one that holds the power for once.

Her feet touch a path and she spies horse tracks, stark and deep in the new snow. They lead into the thinning forest, and in the distance she spies a smoking hearth that spews white smoke into the sky.

(She remembers another town with smoke for an entirely different reason, and how they screamed as she ripped their limbs from their bodies, her smile sincere as she held aloft their shuddering hearts and—no, it's best she forget. No good will come of remembrance.

But try as she might she cannot forget the way she was held in the nights after, how Brittany smothered her screams with her lips and grounded her with the burning weight of her body until she remembered nothing at all.)

Santana's forearm brushes her bare chest as the wind bites at her being, swallowing as she remembers the phantom touch of Brittany's lips upon her skin, sucking and licking, her blue eyes deep and dark. If only she had the courage to slide her hand between her thighs like she so wished, to part her open and feel her gasp against her. The chance is lost, and with it the fantasy.

_If you just apologize..._ whispers the part of her that aches to be with her warrior, but the rest of her is stronger, refusing to succumb to the chances of what could have been. In time, when the clouds clear, they will return to each other—they are endless and eternal as the void is deep—but she is not the only one that has wronged. She is not the monster she has been cast as, and neither is Brittany, but the flames of betrayal must first be turned to ash, and they burn too cruelly to entertain the thought of being smothered.

Her steps take her past a few heads of spooked cattle who skitter from her and towards the first longhouse seen along the path. In the vague distance she spots a larger building, presumably a town hall of some sort, shimmering with invisible heat from its open chimney. A meeting of some sort, then. It would account for the fewer heartbeats she hears in this home.

Her knuckles rap against the wooden door and she smirks to herself. Surely she could barge in and take what she wants, but... she blames Brittany and the manners she attempted to hammer into her brain. The Norse people are welcoming to strangers in the cold, and will gladly lend her some warm clothing to help her blend in.

But then again, as the door swings open and a woman's startled face comes into view, perhaps that may not be the case this time.

"Good eve," Santana begins as pleasantly as she can, discreetly looking further inside in an effort to find anything of use. "I find myself a bit lost... can I escape the cold for a moment?"

The woman gapes for a few moments, eyes darting from her bare breasts to her hips scarcely covered in cloth and back up to her face before shaking her head furiously, making to slam the door in her face. Santana's hand goes out and stops it in its path, her nails gouging so deep they almost break through the other side.

"That would not be wise."

Nonchalantly she swings the door open and steps into the threshold, the heat from the fire almost smothering in contrast to the earlier cold. Two children huddle in the back and watch her with wide eyes as she scans the bare walls and wooden furniture, the scent of cooking stew invading her senses. Strange... she feels no need to eat.

"All I want is some clothing. Are you going to be difficult about that, too?"

The woman swallows and she sees her hands shake so hard they drop the wooden spoon she was holding. "P-please... we have so little. Do not hurt the children."

Her eyebrow arches. "Who said I was going to do that?"

Her host stutters, but the sweat beading at the base of her neck tells no lies.

"Who said," she takes a step forward, "I was going to do that?"

"Nobody," she mutters back, taking a few paces towards her children. They cower from her as her presence seems to fill the space, seeping into every crack and hollow. Santana tilts her head, a smirk playing on her lips.

"Why do you look so scared? I just wish for a tunic, perhaps a cloak. I seem to have... misplaced mine."

"Of course, I, ah... I have one. Just... wait a moment."

Santana watches her rummage in the oak chest by the side of their sleep bench, eventually drawing out a neatly wrapped bundle of wool dyed in modest colours. She smiles shakily, her gaze darting to her children who have shuffled to the far wall. Santana's eyes narrow.

"Here—" her voice cuts off as she lunges with the bundle, the fabric drooping to reveal a wooden club tucked underneath. Santana simply raises her hand and catches the weapon as it descends, the shockwave reverberating down her hardened bone.

"Now, see... _that_ was not wise."

One of her tendrils unfurls and holds the woman by the throat as she is hoisted in the air, her legs dangling uselessly below her. A rustle of sound reveals that her children have darted through a loose board in the wall, their crunching feet fading into the distance. Another tentacle punches through the wall and snares one of the boys by the head—his brother's scream is shrill as he evades her seeking grasp, scrambling away and towards the town hall. She sighs as she drags his sibling through the snow, trying to force his little body through the hole her limbs have made. There is a whimper and a crunch that shakes down to her core, followed by the absence of a heartbeat. His little body is finally pulled through the wall, his neck twisted unnaturally to stare at her in the dirt.

His mother makes a pained groan and kicks to free herself; Santana simply swivels her sight so she can't stare at her boy laying warm on the ground.

"That was unfortunate," she sighs, biting her tongue to swallow the creeping guilt of the little boy's spirit leaving his open lips. The snap of his spine still echoes in her bones, and she resists the urge to do the same to his mother, to crush her throat and feel the life leave her body. Such an addictive thing is death.

The woman chokes something unheard and Santana retracts her new limbs, bringing her closer. "What was that?"

So close, her prey takes that opportunity to spit in her face.

With an infuriated roar Santana whips her into the closest wall, catching her before she falls to the ground. "You think you can be defiant?" Another crash, bones cracking and blood dripping. "You think you can _do that_?" She snarls, loosening her hold to drop her to the ground. "You think you can—" Before the woman hits, another tendril shoots from behind and impales through her chest cavity, slamming into the wall and pinning her there. A wet, ripping sound enters the space and moments later she simply... tears apart, her body bursting in all directions as the tentacle swells and gorges on her blood.

Santana watches numbly as bits of her flesh fly out to decorate the space, blood painting her in a bright crimson swath that flows sticky into her hair. Even the little boy's body is not unscathed, his mother's blood spraying over his tunic.

Seemingly satisfied, the tendril retracts, gently brushing a strand of hair from Santana's eyes. Her gaze travel around the space in the dream, glancing at the shattered remnants of what used to be a human hung about the space.

"Why did you..." The tendril dances along her outstretched fingers, soaking up the blood on her skin. The warmth fills her with contentment, though that little voice that sounds suspiciously like Brittany tells her to be afraid, to be disgusted.

_She deserved it_, she thinks, _she deserved it_, and it is that mantra that follows her outside.

In the distance she sees the form of the one who got away—she could take him as she took his brother, drag him back by his hair where her new limbs will rebel and tear him apart, but perhaps it would be better to give him a chance to get help. More of a... challenge.

She frowns, shaking the thought from her head.

As the boy runs into the town hall she senses the scrape of weapons at their sides, the thud of rising feet as he screams incoherencies and babbles of dark things come in the setting sun. Night falls as she enters the square, but the shadows yield to her—the hall falls silent from the chaos as she swings open the door and lets herself in.

Bristling weapons greet her and she cracks a half-smile.

"Is that really necessary?" she asks, but the blood upon her front tells no lies.

"What do you want, witch?" growls the man at the front, his axe brandished imposingly by his side. The flash of metal brings no fear to Santana.

"All I wanted was some clothes," she sighs, lifting her shoulders and letting her tendrils unfurl around her, streaming in all directions. "But she spat on me instead. It was simply a... misunderstanding."

Another who had been tending to the little boy raises his head, face caught in a snarl. "You killed my _wife_?"

"She sealed her own fate."

He roars and lunges at her, spear drawn, but she simply sidesteps and lets his momentum carry him away. She has seen that expression only once before; her own lover, whirling through enemy ranks in a hurricane of bloodshed. The face of grief.

"No one else has to die today," she warns him, deflecting a jab with her tentacles. They wrap around his spear and yank it away to leave him weaponless. "Be smart for once in your life and walk away."

Her words fall on deaf ears and she has no choice but to raise him high up in the air like his wife, the corrosive slime eating at his skin. He spits insults and curses, foaming, writhing and kicking in the air, damning the ground she walks upon. Santana's expression darkens.

"So be it."

The constrictive grasp around him tightens until his ribcage cracks in his chest, puncturing his useless lungs, blood gushing out of his mouth and ears and eyes. Skin bursts and his innards squirt from the tear, splattering his comrades, draping over his son. The whole space explodes into rioting, a bristling thicket of spears and swords, charging men scrambling over screaming children as they try to cower or flee. Santana lets her fire burn up her naked arms and relishes in the forgotten sting.

One man goes up in a pillar of flame as another is thrown across the room, his spine snapping as he hits the wooden beams. Santana laughs as a warrior gets close enough for her to see the whites of his eyes before a sucking tendril attaches to his face and wears away the skin from his bone, his body shrinking and deflating with the absence of blood until she casts him aside, dead and depleted.

A group of children scramble for the doors, but the floor goes soft and black; gnarled tendrils the size of oaken trunks crawl and cross over themselves to block entry, coursing along the walls and devouring the ceiling. The fleshy covering extends until all light is sucked from the room save for a single beacon of light—Santana's arms, burning hot and bright in the darkness. She grins, the blackness of her eyes reflecting like liquid slate.

The ground writhes under her bare feet as she takes a few languid steps forward, wiping the blood from her nails. Those still alive have regrouped in a semi-circle, shielding the young ones behind them—the space is a mess of screaming and crying, and she soaks in the sound, a dark shiver travelling down her spine. There is nothing in her mind save for the void of death and the suffering that fills it.

"Going somewhere?" she asks softly, allowing her influence to run outside the hall, her dark limbs spearing those resting in their homes. The farms tilt and splinter apart as she chases down those who try to run, snaring them and breaking their brittle bones.

_ I never knew how fragile mortals are..._

The man with the axe swallows and wavers, shuffling back. She tilts her head at the tremble of his weapon and her mouth splits into an unforgiving smile.

"If you would have kept him on a leash, none of this would have happened."

A little boy whimpers and clutches at his leg, covered in gore. His guardian growls.

"You're a _monster_."

_Damned! Look what you did! We're both monsters now!_

The world shakes and cracks open as Santana's roar turns into a scream, tendrils coming from every direction and driving their way through their tender human flesh. The children cry before the darkness invades their veins and they disintegrate into nothingness, the adults being lifted by their heads or legs and devoured entirely. Some are twisted like the champion on the battlefield, their torsos detaching from their hips and spraying bodily fluid all over the space until the fleshy walls seethe with power. The man is wrapped up and brought so close she can smell the fear on his breath, the blood of his comrades mixed with the sweat from his skin travelling down his temple.

"Perhaps," she hisses, clutching at a fistful of his hair. "But did your father never tell you not to disturb the monster in the dark?"

She pulls at his hair until she hears the distinct snapping of his spine, tendons popping and releasing as the bone drives through his throat and into the open. There is only a modicum of satisfaction at his wheeze before the light leaves his eyes, overshadowed by the carnage around her and the rapidly fading excitement. The slow drip of blood dribbles from every corner of the room, some corpses even hanging from the large wooden beams that make up the ceiling. Everywhere she turns she sees bodies, accusing eyes glaring outwards from lifeless faces.

Here, trapped in a room that looks akin to a belly of a monstrous beast, Santana feels no greater than the carnage she has created.

Her mind goes outwards, searching, yearning for a pulse—all lays still and silent in the wreckage, people choking on their own blood in their homes. She slowly retracts her tendrils, their slickness upsetting in the hollow of her back, until they rest still and silent once again. Her flesh heals swiftly where the fire has eaten it away.

A small shuffle catches her attention and she spins, hand open and ready to strangle, but she falters as she becomes aware of the lone figure. A girl soaked in blood sniffles in the corner, clutching the remnants of what must be her father's arm. She mustn't be anything more than a few winters younger than Santana... fourteen, at the least. Her age is not what concerns Santana—she twitches in her desire to run her fingers through the hair that looks so close to what she used to know, smooth and gold even bloodied as it is. Her sea-storm eyes fill with tears as she looks into the gaze of the thing that killed her village and accepts her fate; a blow that never comes.

Wordlessly, Santana opens the door of the hall, letting the night spread out before them.

"You will not last until morn," she says softly, but makes no move to pursue.

The girl's vision darts around for the other voices that speak with her assailant; finding none, she carefully inches her way to the door before taking off at a sprint, dropping the arm as she runs. The scent of blood follows her out into the darkness.

With the crisp night air once again licking at her skin, she remembers her original purpose. How foolish it seems now, how... pointless. She requires no clothing at all. Still, she stoops down to the first corpse she can find, tugging at the tunic it sports with her hand. A small strip comes away, soaked in blood, and with it the thoughts of the man before she tore him apart. She flinches and almost drops it entirely, but the terror in his thoughts as he died makes a thought of her own dawn, resigned.

_Brittany deserves better than this. _

She kneels on the fleshy ground and bows her head, allowing her mind to touch at the patchwork barrier she had created to keep the voices away. Brittany's aura hovers anxiously, vigilant, waiting and watching for the slightest crack in her resolve. Even through the blockage she feels her worry, and it tears her between guilt and pleasure.

She places her hand on her barrier and feels Brittany do the same, her warmth seeping through her left palm. Glimpses of memories from moons past flood her mind; calmer times. She swallows hard and allows herself to let the darkness pour outwards, solidifying that bandaged barrier.

In the time it takes for her to complete the seal she finds herself sucked into another realm, staggering for a moment before gaining her bearings. A quick glance around reveals the sky split in two between moon and sun, straddling the barrier between life and death. She stands on the coarse, desecrated ground, her feet pressing over bones of the slain, the gentle breeze licking at strands of her hair. Brittany stands opposite, her booted feet crushing the emerald grasses, sun reflecting off her beautiful hair. They smile but the gesture is full of nothing but longing.

"Why are you doing this, San?" Brittany asks softly, touching the invisible barrier that keeps them separated. Santana does the same, fitting her palm against the impression.

"I have to," she replies, feeling the phantom embrace of blood on her skin. "For you."

"Please, sweetheart... I didn't mean the things I said. Just come back, we can sort this out."

"You did, though." Santana smiles sadly. "I understand now... at least, more than I did before. You deserve better."

"Damn it, Santana, I don't care what I deserve! I just want _you_!"

But she remembers the dying and the screaming, the people being torn apart and the joy as their blood rained down upon her, the fulfilment and the utter lack of control.

The image of Brittany being the one caught in her grasp is enough to make her stomach churn.

"I want you to be safe! I want you to not have to look over your shoulder all the time, or watch me as I sleep so that I don't strangle you. Britt, whatever happened, it _changed _me. I'm not the person I used to be."

Brittany's smile is soft, but she sees the edges of desperation underneath.

"Neither am I, San. We can be changed together."

The thought is so tempting that she almost raises her fist to shatter the divide between them and take Brittany in her arms, to cradle her close and never let go. But this new darkness she feels in the pit of her chest is not convinced nor swayed by the notion of happily ever after, and it craves something Brittany would never wish to give.

"You know I love you, right?"

She sees the hope bloom on Brittany' face, vibrant as the spring flowers of Yggdrasil.

"I love you too. So, so much."

Her vision blurs with tears as the allows the darkness to spread from her hand and across the barrier, darkening it, phasing Brittany from sight. The Old One is gone but not forgotten, always lurking around the next hidden corner - if a single touch wounded her warrior so, she has no intention of knowing what its embrace disguised as her own could do.

(Or is their touch the same now? Could she hurt as much as she wants to heal?)

"Even if you forget everything else... never forget that."

Brittany runs along the separation, banging her fists uselessly against the wall holding them apart. _Stop it_, her mouth says, but the sound has been silenced._ I love you, stop it_, and Santana's lips return the sentiment even as her hand remains anchored.

_Fitting, that this is the only time I decide not to be selfish._ The thought gives her no comfort as the barrier finishes its metamorphosis and becomes a looming black mountain that hides the sun from sight. Their connection severs and Brittany is gone from her thoughts, just the vague echo of her heartbeat pounding in her chest that Santana cannot erase.

She shakes on the ground and wills herself not to break the barrier that has now been set in stone, desperately aching for her lover's touch. _For her_, she keeps repeating,_ for her soul_, but the reasoning makes it hurt no less. With another sob she grips the piece of torn tunic so hard her own blood joins the mix, tainting the cloth. His memories swirl with her own and an idea forms.

Getting up on wobbling legs, Santana staggers about the space and slowly gathers a strip of clothing from each of the fallen, draping it over her shoulders. The darkness fuses the pieces together tenderly so that they do not fall from her body; wrapping around her torso, embracing her legs, dangling from her arms. Each and every farm is visited, their walls still wet with dripping blood, and she gingerly pulls part of a pant leg from the little boy's trousers that she curls around her forearm, running up her bicep until it sticks, her power melding the fabric together. Eventually, she wears a strip from each and every corpse, their memories clashing and screaming where it touches her skin.

Every time she falters in destroying their connection, all she has to do is remind herself of who she wears.

With a deep sigh, Santana spins her shadowed web and closes her eyes for the night.


	27. Chapter 27

A/N: Late again, I know. Another short chapter, but I hope the content will make up for it. Thank you as always tomy beta, **LeMasquerade, **who likes to wallow in our age differences as she edits this for me. I think we've put a disgusting amount of hours into this by now, so I think her mind's come unhinged and she's allowed to be dramatic. The road gets darker still... never mind our girls, can _you _handle it?

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 27<strong>

**I was dead when I woke up this morning**

**I'll be dead before the day is done**

**January 8th, 913**

Brittany wakes to crying.

Muscle memory has her turning, hand reaching to tangle in dark hair, but it finds nothing except snow and pine needles warm from a flame. Her memory battles with her conscious as she comes to remember the hollow ache in her chest and the numbness in her fingertips, eyes blearily opening to nothing but dark sky and the absence of another.

She swallows down the familiar pain of not having Santana by her side and rolls into a kneeling position, eyes travelling beyond the flickering scope of her fire. The crying is louder now, closer, spliced with hiccups and branches snapping and the crunch of stumbling feet. The shadows won't get the best of her, not this time.

Once the ghostly shape comes into perspective she wastes no time in jumping, her body flying through the air and tackling the phantom to the ground. Soft flesh meets her cheek and Brittany realizes with a start that this isn't another figure come to haunt her, but a person in their own skin, eyes wide and terrified as they sprawl into a heap in the snow. Perched upon their hips, she opens her mouth to apologize, but pauses as the glinting firelight reflects the ruby-red marks stained in slashes across the stranger's skin. Her thumb carefully runs along the person's (girl's, she notes) jaw until it comes away sticky and red.

"Blood," Brittany mumbles, almost losing herself in the familiar scent until the girl shivers underneath her. Upon further inspection she sees the stranger wears nothing but a house-dress; a long, linen undercoat and a woolen outer layer, hooked together with brooches. Not even a cloak. If she peers closely, there seems to be a blue tinge to her lips.

Brittany shifts her weight, hands raised placatingly. "If I get up, do you promise to stay here?"

She thinks it over before another violent shudder almost throws Brittany off her perch, and she responds with a timid nod. Brittany slowly raises herself into a crouched position and holds her hand out to be taken, gesturing to the fire.

Still looking hesitant, Brittany smiles reassuringly. "I have food. And a warm cloak, if you wish it."

After some coaxing she herds the stranger to the fire, unravelling the spare shroud in her pack. It was her old one, but... it has found a better use now. The girl smiles shakily as it is draped around her shoulders.

"Do you have a name?"

"Sigga."

Her tone trembles and Brittany frowns, rummaging through her meager supplies fruitlessly. "Are you hungry? I haven't much luck at hunting recently, what with the winter scaring away the game, but I have a few things that you might—"

A cold hand placed upon her wrist, and she looks up to see the younger girl smiling. "I am fine, truly. You have done more than enough."

But she sees the way Sigga's fingers tremble, so she pushes a water-skin into her hands instead, the ale inside chilled from the frost. While her guest drinks she manages to find a measly handful of nuts and presses them into her palm with no room for complaint. Hardly a feast, but better than nothing at all.

They sit in silence for a few moments, the younger girl hungrily devouring her meal, the ale stinging her throat. Brittany smiles slightly as she feels discrete eyes on the side of her face.

(Once upon a time she was oblivious, but after months of watching Santana try not to watch her, that faded rather quickly.)

"Is there something you want to ask?"

Sigga blushes and stares hard into the fire, tugging at a strand of her loose hair. "I, uh, was just wondering if you were a priestess of some sort. Your cloak is... strange."

Brittany runs her gloved fingers through the glossy feathers. After finding Santana's belongings on the battlefield, she had taken her cloak as her own and cut a strip from her robe to wear as a badge on her chest, the patch of fur thick and warm. It grounds her with the scent that lingers still in the hairs.

"It belongs to my... my friend. She forgot it when she left."

If Sigga notices the drop in her tone she says nothing, simply nodding her head. The younger girl absently smoothes her thumbs down her blood-spattered skin as if to wipe it away.

Brittany notes the way her eyes go dark and distant. Scared.

"What happened?"

The girl starts, swallowing. Her fingers begin to tremble once again.

"A monster. It... it killed..."

Brittany hushes her, her hand firm and warm upon her shoulder to halt the wounded sounds. A draugr, perhaps... several of them could make short work of a slumbering village.

"I have people in my town that can help. If you want, I can take you to my friend Sophias... she is very old and powerful."

Suddenly looking small, the girl nods, retreating into herself. Brittany knows the pain that death brings all too well and leaves her be, instead glancing to her skis. Two people will be a burden, especially for a body not yet returned to glory.

A low growl invades her thoughts, and she turns in time to see a shadow slinking out of the gloom with hackles raised. Her companion shrieks and scuttles backwards into her shelter until her back touches the little saplings, trembling, eyes fixated on the white teeth bared in the night. Brittany waits until the form is close and then shoots out her hand, acquiring a handful of scruff. She yanks and the animal lands in her lap with a discontented yelp.

"You know not to be rude to guests," Brittany scolds Sandalio, bopping his nose with her knuckles. He whines petulantly, tail tucked between his legs. "Go say hello properly."

He slinks forward sullenly, lapping at Sigga's fingers in apology. Her hands twist in his fur after a heartbeat of hesitation but do not remain there for long, his tongue flinching away from the tainted blood on her skin. Brittany ignores his strange behaviour, instead picking up her skis.

"It's a few daywalks to Kaupang," she explains, "this way is faster."

"But... you only have one pair."

"Not important."

Together they pack up her belongings and extinguish the fire, strapping Brittany's boots onto her skis. Sigga awkwardly clambers on behind until her toes are touching Brittany's heels and her arms are wrapped tight around her waist, burrowed in her cloak. After a few experimental falls into the snow they pick up a slow, cumbersome rhythm that has them gliding precariously through the forest.

(It feels wrong to have someone so close who isn't Santana, breath that isn't hers brushing against the nape of her neck. Unnatural, somehow, like her body is unwilling to accept the touch of another.)

By the time they stop for a rest Brittany is drenched in sweat, her chest heaving and thighs burning. The sun shows its face for a few precious hours before the Endless Night descends once again upon them and the glare from the snow is blinding, causing her to trip on roots and bushes. Sigga says nothing, simply clinging on for the ride.

They say little as they set off again, Sandalio loping by their side. Eventually she begins to find other tracks—all human, of course. A single squirrel chatters at them from a branch, slinging insults as they pass.

Daylight comes and goes until darkness falls once again, the moon rising high as they glide once again into Kaupang. Her vision blurs at the edges but she simply licks the sweat from her lips and carries on, almost colliding with several villagers as they dart out of her path. Focused on her goal, she does not see the figure in front of her, one large hand stopping her momentum with an abrupt jerk.

"Going somewhere, little warrior?" Puffing, she looks up into the jotunn's calm, curious face.

"Stórhríð!" He lifts her, skis and all, forcing Sigga into the snows. She laughs and hugs tight around his face, her fingers wrapping in his snowy hair. He seems older, if possible; his beard is longer and his burning eyes aged, a different shade but just as bright. "I didn't know you were back!"

"I just returned. Toppurinn would wish me to finish what we started."

Her smile turns sad as she releases him enough to peer into one of his eyes. "He died a glorious death, my friend."

"The gods took pity and turned him into a glacier. There are few things more glorious than that."

As he reaches down to scratch at Sandalio's back, he spies her companion. "And who is this?"

Sigga gulps but curtseys regardless, her head bowed low. "Sigga Hrolfsdottir, great one."

"Draugar attacked her village," Brittany whispers in his ear, "I think she is the only survivor."

His gaze softens and he nods, bowing himself. "A pleasure. Where were you headed?"

"To Sophias. I thought maybe she could help."

He glances around, scanning the village that has quickly gotten used to his presence again. "I believe she is talking to your father about some matter or another."

"Great."

Together they make their way to Betar's familiar lodgings, Brittany being set down at the doors. She eyes the doorway before turning back to Stórhríð regretfully. "I don't think you can fit through this one."

"I can wait here. Mortals are loud creatures to begin with."

She remembers Toppurinn's booming laugh and rolls her eyes before ducking into the space.

The first thing she spots is Sophias and her glowing markings casting shadows in odd angles, and Sigga's sharp intake of breath as she spots her. Quinn stands next to her with a bored expression, her fingers tapping idly upon her belt. Both Maria and Eyja sit perched upon stools, intently listening to the elder priestess speak. At the clang of the door all heads turn at once and Brittany is smothered in attention, words thrown at her and eyes watching her, but what she feels most are wizened hands upon the back of her head that draw her in for an embrace.

At least one thing in the world hasn't changed at all, and Brittany does her best to reciprocate, looping her arms around the centaur's waist, allowing herself to be held for a moment. She brings the eternal scent of summer with her despite the winter that has swallowed the land, and a reminder of better days; Brittany had only seen Sophias once after the war, in the throes of her agony, torn between life and death. Those hands had soothed her pain and their healing touch still lingers in memory.

"How are the nightmares, child?"

She shrugs, drawing back and discreetly wiping under her eyes. "The same."

Sophias nods in concern, but her father coming into view derails any future conversation.

"Bretagne! You came back rather quick. Did the nights get too cold?"

Wordlessly she steps aside, exposing Sigga to his curious eyes. She blanches.

"You forgot to tell me your father is the _jarl_ of Kaupang," Sigga hisses, and Brittany hides a smile.

"This is Sigga, father. We ran into each other in the woods. She escaped the draugar in her village."

He tugs worriedly at his beard, gesturing for her to sit. The fire crackles warmly as they heat their frozen hands. "Draugar, you say? How many of them were there?"

Sigga frowns, perplexed, her hands stuck almost entirely into the orange flames. "Draugar?"

"Undead," Sophias explains, "raised again to hunger. Walking corpses, essentially."

She weaves an image of grey flesh and dead eyes; Samuel stares back at her with a gaping mouth and matted hair the colour of rotted straw, his crumbling fingers reaching until the bones nearly touch her cheek. Brittany recoils, trying to erase the memory of his body swaying in the ocean breeze.

But Sigga shakes her head until she grows dizzy, her nails worrying at her chapped hands until they bleed. "No, not them... a person. Something that still looked like a person."

"Tell us, child."

Her story begins in their hall, the assembly going on into the night. She was to be introduced to a suitor that would take her hand on the eve of her fifteenth winter and they would build a home together to welcome children of their own. Women were not usually allowed into the assemblies, but her suitor insisted to see her that night.

A boy came in during the feasting, sobbing of a demon in the shadows. His father gathered him tight and those in attendance rose with their weapons in hand—one could see a figure through the slats of the walls, languidly approaching. When the doors flung open, they were all surprised to see but a young woman.

"She was covered in blood," Sigga whimpers, bouncing her leg and clenching her fists. "It was everywhere. She had killed the boy's mother and taken his brother."

"She?" Brittany hisses, but Betar hushes her before she can ask.

After the boy's father had attempted to attack, it was a massacre. There was no other word. People were thrown against walls and ripped to shreds, their innards bursting from their skin. She was pushed back to the far edge of the hall, stumbling blind with the other children as all light was sucked out of the space. The only illumination came from the girl's hands, eerie white in the darkness.

Sophias goes pale a moment before Brittany goes numb, barely hearing the rest of Sigga's story. Fire and tendrils and body parts flung everywhere—her father was literally ripped from her grasp with only his hand and forearm still clutched in her embrace. Eyja dabs her sweating forehead with cloth and rubs her trembling back as she finishes the story, running out into the night until she eventually stumbled upon Brittany.

"She just looked at me so _strangely_. I t-think I startled her."

"Did she say her name?"

All eyes turn to Brittany's whisper-soft question, her eyes fixed resolutely on the floor.

"W-what?"

"Her _name,_" she snarls, turning to grip at Sigga's bicep until she bruises, "did you hear her name? Did she say it?" The girl recoils and Brittany's eyes flash dangerously, shaking her. "Did she?!"

"Bretagne!" Quinn yanks her away into Maria's embrace from which she twists away.

"It must have been the Old One!" she cries, running her hands through her hair. "It must have been! Santana couldn't do something like this, I _know_ her."

"Santana and the darkness are one being now, child," Sophias reminds her carefully. "You have no idea of what they can do."

"The Old One uses her body and her voice, but they are _not_ the same person," she swears vehemently. "If Santana had any control, she would have stopped this."

Sigga steps into her sight, face painted in disbelief.

"Wait, this monster is your _friend_?"

Brittany clenches her fists until her knuckles whiten, uncaring of the brief flash of fear in Sigga's eyes. "Watch your tongue."

"Why? All this time, you— gods, that's _her_ cloak, right? The feathered one?"

She wraps her hand around the bottom protectively, bristling. "The darkness did this, not her."

Betar senses the wavering in her tone but pulls no blows; his thought is only of his kinsmen gone to rot in their homes. "If that... _thing_ did all this, Bretagne, why did it let Sigga live? Why not kill her, too?"

"I-I don't—"

Sophias smiles, sad and soft. "Because she looks like you."

Brittany's voice trails off as she looks at Sigga, eyes sweeping down her messy hair and high cheeks and delicate brows. In another life they could have been kin—sisters, perhaps. Her gaze is but a shade darker.

Her body trembles for a moment until she finds her perch on a stool, burying her face in her hands. Her thoughts whirl and scream in the cavern of her head, clamouring for attention, forcing themselves into the hole that Santana has left behind. The girl that she knows, the girl that she has held and loved and treasured above all else, would never do such a thing (but her mind's eye finds flashes of Santana's smirk, crueler as the days grew colder, and the dangerous glint of her eyes).

Sophias lays a hand upon her shoulder, and all she aches to do is retreat back to the forests where she can simply watch the fire crackle and fizz with Sandalio pressed to her side. Each thought is a mountain to climb, each word an ocean to cross, and she wants none of the hardships they bring.

"It may not be the only explanation," Sophias whispers softly, but she has already planted the seed of doubt, watching it linger and sprout, and Brittany angrily shrugs off her hand.

"I seem to be the only one that has any faith in her," she mutters bitterly, stabbing at the fire with the nearby poker.

The space is filled with quiet murmuring, the smoke thick and smothering, but Betar refuses to let it slide.

"We have to be sure."

Eyes turn to him and though Brittany refuses to look up, she grudgingly lends her ear.

"We have to make sure it was Santana. If Sigga was right, and she is capable of all this destruction in such a sort amount of time..."

His voice trails off, words unspoken. She needs to be stopped.

(Which is another way of saying _she needs to be put down._)

"How do we do that?" Quinn pipes up, previously silent. "We have no way of knowing that it was her exactly. Styrr has the same ability as her—for all we know, there are others."

Another hesitant pause.

"We should go to the village ourselves and see what we can find, perhaps she left something behind."

"Like what? A piece of her skin? Her hair? Footprints will have been covered by now."

Sophias taps her fingers thoughtfully upon her lips. "A priestess as powerful as she will have left a mark on the land. One of us could find it."

"Relying on magic put us in this mess in the first place," Betar retorts. "We should be able to do this without."

"Do you have any better ideas, Silverspear?" Sophias asks neutrally, her quirked eyebrow only lowering when the jarl lets out a muttered _no_. "We need someone that knows her well, otherwise the Old One will drown out anything she has left behind."

"I'll go," Maria volunteers immediately, but the elder centauress shakes her head.

"You have been too long without her, and she has grown too much. We need someone more... recent."

A prickling grows upon the back of her neck, and Brittany slowly raises her gaze to see six pairs of eyes watching her movements. It takes her a moment to catch up with the conversation.

"No," she says flatly, but her father is already speaking.

"Bretagne, you are the only one that can put this to rest."

"Put _what _to rest? All of you think she did it already, what else is there to prove?"

"We need to know where she's going, what she's doing—"

"If you think I will help you hunt her down like an animal that needs to be slaughtered, you are sorely mistaken. I wanted you to help me find her, but to _help_ her, not to try and kill her!"

"Nobody said she was going be killed, my love."

"I can see it in your face!"

The rage comes again and Brittany presses her fists into her eyes to relieve the ache in her throat, sucking deep breaths through her nose. If her body would cooperate she could simply run out the door to be rid of their pitying voices, sprint into the woods and never look back, but she remains pinned to the stool she sits upon. Strangely, she longs for the days where she would simply sit in stony silence as refusal rather than retreating to the angry, violent place she now finds herself.

A figure crouches by her feet, and large hands engulf her own. She knows her father's scent even before he gently pulls her fists from her eyes. She blinks, vision blurry as he wipes her tears away.

"Bretagne... I know this is difficult, but your people depend on you. What if she strikes another village because we do not find her?"

Brittany sniffles, biting back frustrated tears. "I never wanted them to depend on me."

"I know, my love, but you are my daughter and my only child... your honor is bound to your duty as my blood."

(_You make a good leader, Brittany._)

At her doubtful expression, Betar kisses her knuckles warmly. "Please, Bretagne. I must stay here and help the village rebuild, and only you know why she does what she does. I do not wish to force you, but..."

"If it is for the good of your people," Brittany mutters, resigned.

Betar wraps her in his embrace, his lips close to her ear. "I know you do not wish it, but it must be done."

Exhausted, Brittany leans her forehead on his shoulder. "I wish you'd never let Styrr into our village."

"I wish many things, but this is the path the gods chose to take."

But she remembers Odinn, the sorrow in his eye as she was wrenched away. The gods had no say this time.

She is coaxed to standing by Sophias, who rubs soothingly at her neck, directing her to Quinn. "They will take you, Bretagne. It will go faster."

Brittany eyes their skinny horse-legs doubtfully, but says little, walking outside with them to clamber her way upon Quinn's back. A weariness spreads through her as the lingering anger fizzles out and dies, leaving her cold and empty, the way she had remained the moment Santana left her head. Some part of her wishes the anger could return, if only to feel that heat again.

"We have a way to go until the village comes," Quinn informs her. "You should rest."

Though she insists she can stay awake, the rhythmic rocking sends her asleep within minutes of setting off.

...

She rouses to the scent of stagnation.

Her face is buried in Quinn's hair and it sticks to her skin as she groggily straightens up, rubbing at her eyes. Her hips ache and for a moment she believes herself to be back in her shelter in the wilderness before she notes the rocking of her perch. Quinn's skin is cold to the touch, and she slides her hands down to grip at her hide instead, blinking as she looks around.

They have passed a few longhouses, and even though a light dusting of snow has come since Sigga had run they can still see the crimson spray that ejects from the doorways, seeps through the slats of the wood. All around them is the creeping stench that wafts from open homes and poisons the air in all directions. As they get further into town it simply grows stronger, until she hears a few of the other centaur gagging from behind them—Quinn's face is grim, caught in the reflection of an icicle.

"This must be the town square," Sophias whispers, previously unseen, and her presence nearly makes Brittany fall from her seat.

She dismounts, catching her first glimpse of the others she had missed in her exhausted state. A half-dozen centaurs linger anxiously in the cold, their hands drifting to their golden weapons. All centaurs, Sophias once said, have an innate ability for magic—for many, this is their first dealing with the Old One.

The door to the town hall is ajar, and the powerful stench comes almost in waves, threatening to knock the explorers over. Brittany remembers the other town that burned with a thick black smoke, occupants ripped and torn apart, and how Santana erased it from the face of the earth.

It seems she didn't care enough to conceal it this time.

Her hands tremble as she gingerly pushes the door open, her fingers coming back sticky with blood so thick it has not yet dried. All around is the scene of chaos—corpses draped over ceiling poles and against walls, bits and pieces of themselves torn from their home and sprayed in a morose, patchwork paint job. Though they are long cold, it does nothing to erase the smell.

A few of their centaur, despite their age and experience, retch in the corner.

Brittany swallows down her own gorge and leans down to a little boy, his sightless gaze transfixed on the door that leaks cold air into the space. One half of his face has simply... disintegrated, the bone flying outwards to spray itself upon the wall, and she sees the side bulge from his remaining eye as it dries.

"It was here," Sophias mutters, "there is no doubt. The whole village crawls with it."

With the hole in her mind Brittany can sense it too, how it lingers, residing in pools of blood and the tongues of the slain. She touches the soft, spongy walls, sluggishly withering away without a host to feed them.

Quinn's hooves, slow and methodical around the floor, suddenly halt. "I think she decided to put down roots here. Literally."

Brittany and Sophias join her side to gaze upwards where the tatters of a great black web hangs from the beams, the drooping pieces still despite the chill breeze. Brittany touches the ragged ends and her mind captures a picture of eyes like onyx. The presence is still strong, pulsating—as if she had just left.

"She stayed here overnight," Brittany whispers to herself, looking around the room. How could she fathom to linger in all this decay that she caused? Santana was never one to _face_ her problems, not like this. Even the reminder would make her sick. "She must have just left... last night? Sooner? We could have _found_ her."

"Brittany, there was no way to catch her in time."

But she shakes her head, scrambling back from the web that speaks secrets it is not allowed to tell. If she looks hard enough she can see the imprint of bare feet in the wood leading out the door, the faintest edges laced in red. The strides are as long as hers.

"Once she woke up and realized what the darkness had done, she ran." Brittany nods, ignoring the others. "That must be it. Santana could never do this—she was running from what the Old One made her do. I could have— I could have _been_ here, I could have talked to her..."

Quinn and Sophias share a worried look but Brittany has already shouldered her way out the door, glancing haphazardly from left to right. A light dusting of snow has already filled in whatever prints may have lingered from before, and all that remains are bloody handprints that push the door open a final time.

Distraught, Brittany runs her tainted hands through her hair, and the ghosts giggle at what she cannot find.

_Where are you, Santana?_

* * *

><p><strong>January 11th, 913<strong>

It took a few days to get the impulses under control.

At first Santana confined herself to the forests, fighting them, unwilling to give into the new voice in her head that spoke with no sound. It was not the Old One, despite it flowing through every vein of her body, nor was it any other god or goddess. Her own urges had taken on another form, and she had no way to discern the ache from Brittany's missing link until a wandering hunter met an untimely end. The pain faded, and she could breathe.

But then it only got stronger.

She tried to settle herself with animals; foxes, wolverines, deer... even elk. But the fear in their eyes brought her no joy, no rush, no euphoria that she remembered from that village in the trees. She held the lifeless husk of a bear cub in her hands, disgusted by the scent of its musk. It was human touch that she craved, human blood. No lesser animal would do.

(In the back of her mind, Santana was glad she could stop killing them. Brittany would disapprove.)

The balance of urge against need is easily upset, and the smoking villages that dot the countryside attest to that. There always seems to be _something_ that goes wrong—she gets attacked, or one of them makes an unfortunate remark... or she gets greedy. That's always the worst part; a single man burst apart every so often she could stomach, but a family, a camp, a village? It always leaves her unsettled as the silent remnants of her conquest fade into the distance.

Now, washing the blood from her body, irritation is the only thing she feels. Why do they always have to run? It's like they beg her to chase, to wrap her tendrils around their ankles and drag them back kicking and screaming—the chase settles the urge the longest, but makes her feel inhuman, like the abomination she was called so many nights ago. She needs something that can chase for her, aide without questioning... something that she can control just as the earth whims the winds to blow. Santana may be powerful, but not invincible. All this travelling for her satisfaction alone grows tiresome. (And lonely.)

She needs a purpose, but before that... she needs help.

_Styrr._

Her call echoes throughout the lands, resonating within every rock and tree. He comes just as he always will, his mind touching hers for the first time since she restored life to his sibling.

**What is your desire, Master?**

_Stop calling me that._

Within her mind's eye his smirk curls up at the edges, amused.

**As you wish... priestess. What is it you require of me? **

_I need you to find me a... a minion of some sort._

**A minion?**

_Yes, a minion. One of those little burnt men that appeared, perhaps? They were of use last time._

He chuckles and she bristles in her little pond, the waters turning black and murky.

_It would do you well not to upset me._

**Apologies, priestess, but... did you never stop to think of the draugar that await your command? Even now they wander without a purpose, but you could be the one that draws them back together. **

Harnessing the monsters they spent so long fighting seems absurd, but all of Nor Veg knows their call and caress... she casts her mind outwards, searching, and finds them scattered, stumbling through the silent wilderness, their rattling moan carried on the fetid wind of their breath. Most are alone, some in little groups of six or less, but far to the south roams one pack of thirty or more. They stall as she brushes against their ravaged minds and turn their sightless eyes to the sky.

_They will heed my call?_

**They are your creations, priestess. They will do whatever you will. **

Tentatively she beckons them forward; in synchronization the pack turns to the north and begin to shamble at a steady pace, seeking out the lifeforce of their mistress. Others too heed the call, and her head is filled with hundreds of converging footsteps.

**You can will them to attack, if it pleases you. If not, they will ignore all that crosses them, like rather simple mutts. **

The largest group threads through the fjord at a slow but steady pace as she wills them to stay at the shoreline lest they trip themselves in the brush. Sun and stars wheel overhead as she follows their ambling process across the lands until she reaches a roadblock.

Kaupang.

Unaware of their path, Santana halts them just as they stagger directly into the crippled village; the townsmen shout and startle as the undead waver in their yards, their heads swinging back and forth with the movements of their former prey. The priestess forces them onwards, beating down the carnal urge to feed that she senses in each and every one of her creations.

She finds her procession halted by a rough ensemble of spears and swords pointed at her pawns just as they spot the exit to the town. Annoyed, she wills herself into the body of the one caught in the flickering firelight of the villager's torches—a girl, no older than ten summers. Her vocal chords have begun to rot along with her sight, but it will do.

**"Let us** **pass,"** she snarls, eyes sweeping unconsciously for Brittany. Her presence is not within the crowd, her light absent. She breathes a quiet sigh of relief.

"This road goes no further, draugr," comes the voice she recognizes all too well—Betar, gripping his sword firmly, heads the resistance. Santana sighs and the motion animates the corpse in a way much too close to human.

**"Your village has seen too much death, jarl; do not be foolish. Let them pass and leave uninjured." **

"I will not put faith in the word of the damned."

**"When you burn them, know it is your doing."**

Yelling erupts as the undead lunge as one, their fearsome grip clamping and ripping apart. Betar startles and lops off the arm reaching for him, spraying black blood over his face.

_Leave the jarl._

Her pawns divert their attention to others, ignoring the shriek as one of their own is engulfed in flames. Limbs fly, both from sheer strength and cutting precision, and soon enough the space is bathed in blood.

There isn't the same rush she usually gets from simply lurking in the body of another being, but there is the innate satisfaction as Betar ducks and weaves in an attempt to aid his villagers. For so long he has tried to hinder her, to deny her the things she wanted—no, needed—and now he is at the mercy of her own power, kept alive only by her will alone. Strange how the tides turn once allegiances are erased and true faces revealed.

Another one, and then two and three draugar go up in flames, and Santana takes a glance around. Though she could raise the villagers from the dead and turn them against the resistance, her forces are still thinning too quickly as they realize what their weakness is. With a grudging sigh she whispers at the draugar to turn back, leaving a few as sacrifice so the others may escape. The draugar turn, sometimes with a man still clamped in their grip, and begin the trek to her once again.

Before they leave, however, something catches her eye.

In her borrowed body, dead lips curl into a devious grin.

_Get the boy._

Finngeirr yelps as two of the undead knock his weapons from his hands and grasp him by the arms, giving a mighty tug until he is yanked off balance. Still disoriented from the blow to the head during the battle with Harald, he stumbles and falls, kicking at the ground as his captors continue to drag him along. No matter how much he struggles and twists, he is no match for their unholy grip.

"Help!" he cries, watching his comrades become obscured by trees, "help me! Please!"

Santana chuckles lowly, patting his helmet. **"Nothing can help you now, rat."**

He glances up into her eyes and pales, shaking his head until he makes himself grow dizzy. "No... no, not you, oh gods please not you, not now... help! _Help!_"

Before she relinquishes her borrowed body she cuffs him over the back of the head so hard his helmet bounces and his body goes slack, feet trailing in the snow. Less noise the better.

Santana releases herself and returns to her own form, rolling her neck as she settles back into her own skin. Satisfied, she smiles.

_Come to me, Styrr. I have some questions I need answered._

**Of course, priestess. **

In the end, as her group tracks further and further north, she decides not the raise the Kaupang dead. Though they have caused her a significant amount of grief, some did show her true kindness in the summer months, making sure she felt at ease in the village as best she can. She recognized the man whose wounds she stitched in the spring limping away with a gnawed leg and deigned not to follow. She can afford this kindness in return.

But to Finngeirr? There's no harm in embracing her new nature whole-heartedly for him.

He's the one that first called her a monster, after all.

She readies the little farmhouse she had _visited_ in the night, sucking the blood from the walls and carefully rolling the bodies to the far corner. Better to think she has some semblance of control when he first comes in—she doesn't want him wetting himself at the start. Such an unflattering smell.

By the time they arrive she believes another day has passed—or has it? She loses track in this new body, time and space meaningless as her stomach remains perpetually silent. The crunching of feet had been steadily getting louder for hours now, those closer by arriving early and lingering outside. She had never seen half their faces before, full of rot and decay, but supposes that's for the best. So many memories clamouring for attention might just drown her.

Another heartbeat comes into earshot, sluggish and slow, followed by the scent of trickling blood. Two draugar stumble inside, faces ravaged by cold, chucking the limp figure at her feet. Santana smiles and bids them to wait outside, listening for the thump of a closing door before she goes over to her latest prey.

Finngeirr mumbles against the cold dirt floor, eyes fluttering slightly. He looks positively boyish in this position, body curled into itself, teeth chattering behind his closed lips.

So fragile.

She fetches the stew this unfortunate family was cooking and dumps the cold liquid onto him, ignoring the curses he spews as she languidly goes to sit down. When his eyes finally focus on her, she's unsure whether it is her wicked smirk or dark eyes that cause him to scramble backwards.

"You!" His back hits the door, fingers scrabbling for the latch only to find it sealed tight. "What are— how— where am I?"

"Truthfully, I'm not sure. A farmhouse, surely. North of Kaupang, even." When he opens his mouth to call out, her eyes flash dangerously. "Several daywalks. Nothing will hear your screams except the draugar that brought you to me."

"What do you think you're trying to pull, witch!"

Her steps echo in the household, punctuated only by his fearful panting. "Too hard to believe I simply brought your here for a _friendly_ chat?"

"You don't have friends, bitch. You have victims."

"Perhaps," she muses as he pulls his hunting knife on her, "but what does that make you?"

She reaches for his hand, barely flinching as he drives the metal through her palm; her fingers curl around his own and squeeze until they both hear the distinct cracking of bones under his flesh. She lets him go only as his screams turn hoarse.

"When will you learn? You can't kill a monster."

Yet he still tries; he awkwardly draws his axe with his remaining hand, holding it at an odd angle as he rushes her. She backs up a step until it whistles past her face, ducking under another heavy blow. Clumsy with his left hand, he sprawls backwards as her tendril pushes from her palm and throws him across the room.

His last swing had missed her by a sliver, and she watches as a lock of her hair floats to the ground.

_Too close for comfort._

Her tendril snatches the dropped axe and slams it through his left wrist until it bites into the dirt that makes up the floor, severing it with the dull tear of snapping bones and tendons. His scream is shrill and fills her with a dark satisfaction even as her sludge crawls over his stump to stop the bleeding.

"A valiant effort," she notes as he retches in the corner, "but not quite good enough. The draugar will enjoy the snack."

"W-what do you _want?_" The first crack in his voice, trembling and desperate. A thrill shoots down her spine, more pronounced than anything procured thus far.

"Oh, Fingeirr..." Her tendrils curl under his arms and hoist him until his toes barely brush the floor, twisting helplessly in the air. "Can't you see? _You_ are what I want."

She throws him against the far wall, breaking his fall before he slumps down onto the floor. "You spent so many moons taunting me, remember? Spitting at me, demeaning me, calling me a whore and a liar... letting your filthy hands touch the thing I loved the most."

Tentacles wrap around his broken hand until he screams at her to stop, the bones grinding beneath the skin, snapping and popping until exposed to open air. They pull at the bones until they, too, are ripped from him and cast aside. The draugar hunger for the scraps through open slats in the walls. "You said once that I would burn for what I have done, remember? That I would pay?"

She picks up the sobbing boy once more, twisting his head back and forth. "I debated letting you burn—a taste of your own threats, if you will—but it would be too easy. It would hurt for a few moments, and then the pain would just... disappear. Hardly fitting."

Her claws lightly trace the hammer of his heartbeat, drawing the slightest trickles of blood. "I want you to suffer as I have suffered, Finn. All I have given up for your village, all I have lost... yet you still mock me, daring to think about her in the ways I know you do." The darkness in her eyes roils for a moment, furious before settling. "I do her a favor, removing you from the earth. I only mourn that I have no say over where you go when your soul leaves your body."

She hoists him so that he dangles overhead, a thick tendril escaping from the center of her chest to press directly against his. Despite it all, she smiles. "I have been waiting so _long_ for this moment, boy."

Even as his tears drip down onto her face and she draws a shuddering breath in preparation, another voice steals into the space.

"Ending your pleasure so soon, priestess?"

Startled, she drops the boy with a thump and whirls around, relaxing only slightly as Styrr's willowy frame is revealed in the flickering firelight. He watches her impassively with his iceberg eyes, flicking only briefly down to Finngeirr who writhes pitifully in the dirt.

"You got here quickly."

He shrugs with a cryptic smile. "I have my ways."

Beside him, the figure of the girl she returned to the earth peeks out from behind his legs. Santana bares her teeth and she flinches away, darting behind him.

Styrr brushes his hand over her head in a silent bid for her to stay and strides over to Finngeirr, rolling him over with his foot. He eyes him critically, glancing over his mangled hand, paying more attention to the way Santana shivers when he steps on it and makes the boy cry. "You seem keen to end him."

"What other use have I for him? Nothing but a useless sack of skin."

They watch the warrior roll over, clutching his remaining hand to his chest, weakly recoiling away when he spies the sightless eyes of the previous family that occupied the space. Her body thrums with the urge to turn them and have them rip out his tongue, but she relents.

(Control yourself, Santana.)

Styrr clicks his tongue. "Your imagination is lacking. He is much more... amusing when alive."

At her frown, he relents. "It can be addressed at a later time. You had questions for me?"

Brought back to reality, she gestures for him to sit. "Many. You were its prophet and its trumpet—surely it gave you some knowledge as to its desires?"

"Hardly. I was its most prized servant but in no way a confidant... for the hundreds of years I served it, little else was spoken of save finding one strong enough to withstand its power. It found that in you, and so I came."

"Does it talk to you now?"

"Why would it? You are Whole... I answer to you, for you are One."

"But... where did it go?"

"It is still within you, priestess. I hear it in every word you speak, even if you do not."

Sparing herself the headache, she waves him off.

"You were intended to be my adviser, so... advise me. Surely my existence is not to be restricted to hunting down my unfortunate next meal in the snows. If I knew that was what awaited me, perhaps I would have thought twice about this whole matter."

(But the remembrance of Brittany's skin is enough to make that ring hollow.)

"Blood is your desire, not your requirement. You kill because you lust for it."

She scowls. "Do not compare me to those baying berserkir in the fields. I could restrain myself if it was needed."

"Then what is he doing here?"

Both sets of eyes tip to Finngeirr, feebly trying to knock out a portion of the wall with his elbow. "I... I am doing Brittany a favour by removing him. He causes nothing but grief."

"You do not sound sure."

Her mouth opens for a moment before she scowls again, nearly knocking him off the chair in her displeasure. "Why am I answering to you? You are _my_ servant now."

"Perhaps, but I am also your reason. Denying your new nature will only cause problems when the bloodlust becomes too great."

"Do you see me denying it, Styrr? Do you not see how many people I have killed over the last moon? All because your god has put these thoughts into my head!"

Every time she closes her eyes she sees the countless faces she has burned or torn apart, but each day finds her losing the guilty edge that so used to cut like a searing knife. They are becoming numbers now, nuances, nothing more than tallies on a wall. She wishes it would hurt more.

"The boy suffers because you willed it so, priestess."

"Fine, this one is personal. One can hardly fault me for taking such pleasure in his pain."

"I serve you, I do not judge," Styrr shrugs, "but others do. Even now they see you as a threat."

The first smirk curls her lips, excited. "Then let them come. I was content with taking one or two every second dawn... it is they that put the target on their backs."

He sighs at her enthusiasm; almost fondly, if such a thing could be attributed to him. "You are not invincible, Santana, nor are you immortal. If enough come, you will fall."

Her power has a limit? "Then what do you propose I do? I cannot run forever."

"My Master... though guarded, it once whispered of a great power in the lands to the south that it wished to absorb. An ancient language."

"What does it do?"

Leaning forward, he gingerly rests his hand upon her knee. "With it, you could devour gods."

A chill shoots down her spine, tendrils shuddering. He tells her there will come a time where the blood of mortals is not enough, that the lust will consume until all will fall in her wake. It is then she will turn her gaze from this plane in search of another; the gods that reside in Asgard, the Mother in her eternal domain... but more than anything, the White Christ and his stronghold in the skies.

("You would rip the wings from angels without a second thought, priestess. Nothing could defy you.")

"Where is it?" she demands, voice echoing. "Is it in Rollo's lands?"

"The lands of the soft priests, further south."

"Find it," she commands him in a hiss. "If needed, we will journey there together."

He presses her down to where she has begun to rise off her seat. "You are not strong enough, priestess. The holy place will not mesh well with your new body—you must nurture your power until you can face it."

She sucks on her lower lip anxiously; more time spent in the snows of the north means more bodies, more villages turned to ash. She knew the Old One ached for destruction—she feels it in every fiber of her being, crying out and begging her to relent, but she thought it could be ignored...

"You will drive yourself mad if you try and resist the lust," Styrr advises gravely. "There is nothing worse than a mad god."

"I am no god, Styrr."

"Not yet. But you could be."

Crunching footsteps break her concentration and she glances backwards to glimpse the hole Finngeirr had managed to make in their conversation, much like the boys from nights ago. He stumbles into the forests and the draugar watch him blankly as he goes, dribbling blood into the snow. She sighs, whispering to them until they come and drag him back by his sweaty hair. Sprawled at her feet, she uses her toes to lift his chin.

"Going for a stroll?"

She smirks when he whimpers, all conflicting thoughts pushed aside. Her toes run down the tender slope of his neck, pressing into the hollow of his throat until he gags.

"You should keep him," Styrr muses, glancing briefly to her pleased expression. "It may slow the lust for a while."

"Truly? Even if he stays alive?"

He shrugs. "Suffering does not discriminate between life and death."

(Suffering is such an ugly word. Santana prefers... momentary discomfort.)

A black collar blooms around Finngeirr's throat, sticking and fusing to his flesh until it becomes an extension of himself. He panics and attempts to pull at it, crying out as he puts pressure on his mangled fingers. The sound drowns out all else.

The first glimmers of sunlight peek through the doorway of the longhouse. Styrr sighs and rolls his neck, making to stand. "I should begin my travels before another storm blows through. I am not immune to the cold, unlike you."

She nods absently, threading her fingers through Finngeirr's hair. "When you said to stay here and nurture my power... you meant more had to die."

"You do what feels right, priestess. You are above them now. Their lives are but a brief flicker in your world and will not be missed."

The advice is of no help—nothing feels right anymore. Some parts of her scream to save, but those that grow louder demand to destroy.

"I will tell you the minute I find what it is we seek. It may be... sooner than expected."

With a final snake-thin smile, he beckons his sister to him and sweeps out the door, leaving nothing but a gale of snow blowing in after him. Santana remains in her seat for a long while, stroking her new servant's hair.

"Lucky for you, Styrr arrived just in time. You get to keep your pathetic existence a little while longer."

He whimpers.

* * *

><p><strong>January 12th, 913<strong>

They had lingered in that unnamed village long enough to set the buildings ablaze; even now they sputter with a thick, greasy smoke, burning away the remnants of the darkness that linger in every severed limb. It seems that much like the draugar it can only be cleansed in fire, but how effective can that be when the very person who calls the darkness bends fire to her will? Brittany spends a long time wondering if the flames would sear Santana's flesh before striking the thought from her mind.

Along the way they warn the other towns of draugar in the night and a girl with eyes like slate, but Brittany knows she won't return. Her heartbeat is distant now, fading into the north. The centaur shake from the coldest winter in decades but remain stoic, their hooves making great scores in the snow.

Despite herself, Brittany spends much of the return home wondering if this is her fault. Different scenarios play out in her head; confronting Santana and the blackness, striking that scroll from her hand, slitting Styrr's neck while he slept. All came to conclusions vastly superior to this... provided they survived the war. Even a town ravaged by battle would be preferable to having to go without her for over a moon, forgetting her taste and touch in favor of the cold arctic winds. Love has no place in a kingdom as harsh as Nor Veg, Afi always said, and it seems he might be right after all.

_Do not think such things,_ she scolds herself, but the thought remains even as she leans against Quinn's back and drifts into an uneven sleep.

...

She wakes to blue sky and warm grasses; it takes her a moment to discern that all this hadn't simply been a nightmare made by her dying mind, that the ground she lays upon is not the lush meadows of Asgard come to welcome her to Valhalla. Brittany sighs mournfully and pushes herself upright, searching for clues.

Across the way is a barrier that pulses with an eerie, shadowed light. It cuts off the night sky and makes the glare of the sun harsher than ever, beating down into her eyes. She remembers running across its length, begging Santana to reconsider.

"Unnatural, isn't it?"

She jumps, fumbling for her axe before realizing she is weaponless in this strange place. Her fists come up in front of her face to shield it from blows, but they droop considerably when she takes in the woman standing before her.

Brittany is by no means short, but she feels dwarfed in her presence. She cranes her head up to look into pearlescent eyes and drops her fists entirely when the woman smiles back, her face framed by massive, curling horns. She's only seen that smile once before, lying in the mud while the world was washed away around her.

"Ataecina? What happened? Why am I here?"

The Mother shushes her, stroking her thumb along the back of Brittany's hand. "Calm yourself, my child. You simply fell asleep. Your soul floats easier now that the Old One has damaged your mind."

"Oh... why did you summon me?"

"You came of your own volition, Bretagne. You seem troubled."

Brittany chews her lip, glancing at the barrier. "I suppose you know why."

"There have been a great many things happening recently that are out of your control. Santana falling prey to the darkness is simply one of them."

They begin a languid walk around the forest, the warm summer breeze brushing at her face. Though she tries not to, she relishes the respite from the bitter mountain cold; how similar it is to her brief visit to Valhalla. It would make sense, being a holding ground for the dead.

Brittany eyes her suspiciously. "I'm not dead again, am I?"

Ataecina laughs, her eyes wrinkling at the corners. "No, child. Your body is as well as it could be, returning from the dead."

"You... accept that?"

"Of course. The way you have been returned may not have been through my blessing, nor the blessing of your own gods, but here you stand. Just because Santana made a decision outside of my realm does not mean I reject it."

Brittany squints up at her, shielding her eyes from the glare. "You don't think I'm damned?"

"My child," Ataecina smiles gently, "all mortals are flawed creatures. Your predicament does not make you more so. I simply wish to help you heal so you may face these next trials with strength and dignity."

Ataecina leads the stunned girl to a stump and gently coaxes her to sit, taking her hands. The Goddess kneels before her and strokes fallen hair from her face. "You cannot stay long, as your soul is not so finely tuned to the ways of the magical realm... but listen to me, Bretagne. You mustn't give up hope in her. You are the only person that can change the person she is becoming."

"You... even you think it has to be her that's doing all this?"

"It does not matter, my heart. What matters is what _you_ believe."

"But... Goddess, I don't know _what_ to believe! Everybody is saying she did it, a-and I want to think she's still Santana, but sometimes..."

She remembers tumbling back into her own body and the brief, blurry glimpses of a broken battleground. Santana, with her writhing wings, sucked the life from her people as if they were but an afterthought, her dark eyes bright with fervor. The Old One was but a whispering nuance that gifted her the means to an end.

"Do you love her, Brittany?"

"Yes," she replies firmly, unaware of her new name.

"Will that love change if she continues on this path?"

"Never."

"Then you can save her," Ataecina promises, kissing her forehead. "The road will be hard, but know we are with you."

"We?"

The Goddess grins. "Samuel has been praying for you ever since this war begun."

Brittany sees a blond figure waving in the distance, his white robes billowing; her smile is watery as she waves back. The wind picks up and brings his blessings with it, brushing against her skin.

"I once told Santana to be kind, for you would be her greatest ally... and now, I tell you to do the same."

The lines of her form dim, fading from existence. Brittany reaches for her, but her hand crosses through nothing at all.

"Kind to what?"

Ataecina simply shakes her head, a cryptic grin playing on her lips. "Those that were once your enemies may come to be your dearest support, my child. Do not cast them away."

The word is sucked out underneath her feet, and with a final glance at the waving figure in the distance, Brittany is falling.

...

She lands with a jolt in her own body, bolting upright and nearly scaring Quinn off the path. Kaupang greets her as they walk through its threshold, the familiar buildings bringing some form of peace to her confused mind. Quinn reaches back to pat her thigh comfortingly.

"You slept the whole way. We just arrived."

Her father stands in the snows, body hunched as he speaks with another man. Due to the massive furrow in his brow, the conversation does not seem to be running smoothly; his hands fly about like he wants to simply squeeze the life out of the other, the smaller man cowering away ever so slightly. Brittany dismounts with a _thank you_ to Quinn, touching her father's arm.

"What happened?"

"Ah, Bretagne!" He pulls her into an unexpected hug, smothering before releasing. "Thank the gods, someone experienced."

"Experienced in what?"

"Draugar hunting. There was a pack that came just a few days ago, after you left." He clears his throat, and she can see his lips fight the twitch that would turn into a smile. "You will be... saddened to know that Finngeirr is one of the ones taken in the attack."

"They... took him?"

"Whisked him away. The trackers have gone after them now. His mother is beside herself."

"Aye," the stranger pipes up, "and we'll hunt to the ends o'the earth to get the boy back!"

"You might get him back in pieces," Brittany says blandly. "The draugar tend to forget their own strength."

A hard elbow to her ribs; Betar glares from the corner of his eye.

The stranger didn't seem to hear her. "Did you know one of those blasted things talked to us? Talked! Like it had a mind of its own!"

_Maybe it did_. _Santana likes to talk back._

Further interrupted by shouting, the trio glance over to see Reinn forging through the snow towards them, flushed and out of breath. "Jarl Betar! Jarl Betar, we have—" he nearly stumbles into Brittany, resting his hands on his knees, "we have visitors!"

"Visitors? In this weather?"

The stamping of hooves invade Kaupang, the jingle of metal shifting against metal—men march into the space, fifty strong and faces grim, coming to a halt at the village threshold. Brittany notes the gauntness of their features and the hollow sockets of their eyes; food has come uneasily for them.

Betar's hand drifts to his sword. "What is the meaning of this?"

The last rider advances until he breaks free of the line, hand clutching a crudely done white flag. Brittany would recognize that armour anywhere.

"Jarl Silverspear," Harald says smoothly, removing his helmet. "We need to talk."


	28. Chapter 28

**A/N: **Shortest chapter since the very first, but considering a blessing as I let y'all breathe before the finale. We have three chapters left after this, so hang on tight!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 28<strong>

**and I know that we can survive**

**I'll walk through fire to save your life**

** January 13th, 913**

A year ago, though Brittany didn't know what her future held, she was sure it would not involve having a drink across the table from a leader that had been slaughtering her people but a half-moon before. She hides herself behind her tankard as his gaze bores into her own, sharp and suspicious, idly swirling his ale at his side. The space is filled with the hungry chewing of fifty starving men surrounding the longhouse, but Harald seems to pay them no mind.

Eirik, finally leaving his father's side to shoulder responsibility as the leader of his armies, takes turns glowering at all three occupants in the space.

Betar, ever impatient, leans forward. "So, Harald of Normandy, brother of traitor king _Rollo_... you sit in my hall and eat my food and drink my ale. It seems only fair you give us the nature of your visit."

Harald rolls the white flag between his fingers.

"I lived in Nor Veg for many years. I know the land and all its temperaments—I knew my army would be cold, ill-equipped for the winters, but... there is something foul in the snows. Some freeze to death in the night, others starve until they are unable to move. I may outnumber you, but you are healthier than we, and you have walls to keep out the undead that come and pillage our camps. I ask for a truce until this problem is snuffed out."

Eirik chuckles in disbelief. "You attack our land and now expect us to aid you? After all you've done to harm us?"

"I did not expect the draugar to be such a formidable foe. I had heard of the troubles, but until I saw thirty men rise up from their wounds and attack their comrades, I thought them easily destroyed."

"We should just leave you to rot in the snows as a warning to your brother."

"Not only will he respond with another, stronger army in the summer, but we will rise as the dead and attack you. Draugar do not feel hunger."

"Even if we would shelter you," Betar raises his voice to cut through the growing squabble, "who says we could? Kaupang hosts eight hundred villagers _at the most_—fewer after the battle—and you have thousands waiting in the cold. We cannot feed so many hungry soldiers, nor can we house them."

"We ask only temporary protection as we rebuild our camps. The draugar destroy any chance we have at making shelter... I thought they had no mind of their own, but they seem terribly focused on making our lives difficult."

"How many are there? We only see stragglers pass through."

Harald takes a grim sip of his drink. "At times, dozens descend upon us. It seems they always leave in greater numbers than they arrive.

"Silverspear, surely you are not _considering_ offering our enemy protection?" Eirik's face has begun to take on that red tinge that Brittany knows so well, crimson to match his anger. "Not a half-moon ago we were painting the snows with each other's blood!"

"My lord, times are changing. If we ignore them, the undead will become a greater threat than Harald's armies. Add that to Santana, who runs rampant in the forests wiping whole towns from existence; I think we have a problem that _needs_ to be addressed."

Harald's interested eyes are not unnoticed, but Betar waves him away. "We will tell you about the other issues later. What will you do for food if you are allowed to stay?"

His gaze lingering on Brittany, Harald licks his dry lips. "We have food caravans running to us from the south. They are delayed because of the storms, but also the centaur that pillage and cripple them. Didn't you say a representative would be around shortly?"

A gale of snow blows in and nearly extinguishes the small candles about the space; Maria stumbles in, shivering, followed moments later by Quinn. She wipes off her golden scabbard and looks around the space, unfazed by the watchful eyes.

"Apologies for the delay. The snows have picked up again."

The Norman leader looks her up and down, raising an incredulous eyebrow. "They sent one so young to deal with such serious matters?"

Quinn's eyes cut to him, unamused. "I am decades older than you, human. Sophias is busy convincing my father to stay and sent me in her stead."

"Philokrates is still considering leaving?" Betar asks, surprised. "His people will not fare well in such snows at this time of year."

"Sit down and let us get this over with," Eirik grunts, slumping back in his chair. "I have matters to attend to."

_Like drinking the day away,_ Brittany snarks to herself.

Quinn settles as best she can, not bothering to try and bend to reach for her beverage. Her head narrowly avoids hitting the low-hanging ceiling beams as she passes.

"We were just talking about the issue with the caravans..." Harald trails off, gesturing.

"Quinn," the centauress fills in, "and my people are poised to halt the attack... provided a truce is agreed upon and you keep your word."

"You are not to be trusted," Eirik sneers at Harald, his eyes burning in the darkness. "My armies will not bow to you."

"I do not expect them to, but they will need guidance. Having a greater force against the unknown foe will strengthen their spirits."

Despite being arrogant and prideful, Eirik is not stupid. He chews on the rim of his tankard as he studies the southern leader, eyes impassive. His people have started to whisper their doubts to the winds, speaking of the fear in the air and the cold that eats down to the bone. Tents will only protect against so much when the nights are long and haunting. They grow weary.

"How do we know the draugar will not follow you here?"

"They do not have a mind of their own," Harald says, but his tone conveys his uncertainty. "They do not seek us willingly."

_Yes they do,_ Brittany thinks, but she swallows her secret before it can be spoken.

For a moment the great leaders rest in silence. Eirik drowns himself in ale; Betar drums on the table; Harald finally sweeps his eyes from Brittany to rest on Maria. He studies her intently, smiling faintly as he spots the heavy bearskin cloak still around her shoulders.

"I trust it has seen you well, High Priestess?" he asks, gesturing to her apparel.

She startles for a moment before nodding, running her fingers down the fur. "It has. It doubles as a bed in times of strife."

"Good, good. And what of your daughter? Does she have a cloak of her own?"

An awkward pause radiates through the space until Maria breaks eye contact to stare at the table. Harald's brows furrow quizzically as he rubs at his own beard.

"She did not fall in battle, did she? I would have been told of such a thing—"

"Oh, she fell, all right," Eirik sneers into his drink. "Fell into madness."

"I would watch your tongue if I were you, my _lord_," Maria hisses. "That girl is the only reason half your men are alive."

"How dare you speak to me like this, you filthy piece of—"

"Stop!" Betar roars, his fists slamming down on the table until it shakes. Both parties go silent, Eirik more from astonishment than any want to obey. "No good will come of squabbling like hags!"

"You tread a fine line, Jarl Silverspear," Eirik snarls, face ruddy with discontent.

"I... _apologize_, my lord, but I want all parties to be of the same understanding."

Maria and Eirik, too busy shooting daggers at each other with their eyes, do not see Harald's interested shift in stance.

"This party is not of an understanding, jarl."

Betar sighs, rubbing his hand over his face.

"I do not know the details of this mess, nor do I want to. Santana... she has been given a terrible power, and it has driven her mad."

At Harald's raised brow, he relays what he knows; the darkness in the night, the stillness of the forests. Villages dead and burning from the lightest touch of her hand, a vortex that swirls around her thoughts and threatens to pull all under her devouring current.

"The Old One did it," Brittany mutters, chewing at her nails. "It stole inside and ate away at her mind. My death blinded her and it came like Loki does in dreams."

"Your death... you were the one that killed my boy."

She fully meets his eyes for the first time that night, unable to stay lest the weight of his stare buckle her. "I had no choice. He... he killed Afi. I had to avenge him."

"But they said he killed you."

"He did."

Though the details are fuzzy, slipping in and out of the stupor her rage created, she remembers all too vividly the sword sliding through her belly, sharp and smooth and cold, cutting away at her tender insides until they gushed out onto the snow.

(She also remembers William's blood, hot and sticky as it sprayed into her eyes, but he doesn't need to know.)

Maria reaches over to break his heavy gaze, touching his hand. "Put away your grudges for now, lord. We need to be united."

Reluctantly, he pulls his eyes away. "Once my brother knows of this, he will not allow this union."

"Then we must act quickly."

"How?" Quinn interjects, expression grim. "The draugar could be up north amassing forces for all we know. It will take months to smother them fully in these snows."

Eirik hums in disbelief. "And even if we do, who says more won't spring up? Where did the first one come from?"

"A wandering _seið-mann_ raised the body of an English priest. He brought the darkness to Kaupang."

Brittany bites her lip, begging her tongue not to correct her father.

"Where is he now?"

"Vanished."

Eirik rubs his eyes, looking for the first time the weary leader his father had become. All this magic sits wrongly in his skull, swirling disjointedly and threatening to confound him fully. A warrior is never meant to dabble or deal in such things... leave it to the soft men who weave something from nothingness.

"What of the girl?"

Quinn lifts her hand to create a map in her palm, much in the way Sophias taught Santana what seems like eons ago. The jagged cliffs of Nor Veg rise like crowded teeth, and she marks the towns succumbed to Santana's wrath with smoking ruins, billowing up into the rafters. To their credit, the leaders only look vaguely surprised.

"She moves in no real direction," Quinn shows, waving at the markers. "North for a while, then east, then west again. She might be lost."

"How does she move so quickly?" Betar swishes his hand through the strange smoke, whirling around his fingertips before disappearing.

"Who knows. I doubt she needs to sleep very much, if at all."

"What are we to do? She is of no threat to us here, but she slaughters my people at whim. If she spares them, the draugar will not be so kind. I will _not_ allow her to have her pickings like a wolf with a flock of sheep."

Harald sighs, studying the map. "What do you propose? We cannot catch her, nor can we warn the people in the forests. Can we subdue her?"

"Piss on that!" Eirik growls, his eyes dark. "That bitch needs to be put down before her plague spreads any further."

Maria stands up as menacingly as she can. "If you so much as touch her—"

"Your daughter is a _monster_, priestess, she must be—"

"If you try, she'll rip you apart."

They stop yelling to look at Brittany, picking at the edge of the wooden table with her knife. Her thoughts are consumed with a gaze as dark as the abyss she glimpses in her dreams.

"She is _one_ person. We have an army."

"The draugar are her army."

Betar leans forward until he almost bends himself over the table, hands clasped in a mockery of prayer. "How do you know this, Bretagne?"

"Styrr told her, just before the battle. The Old One took her soul during the night." At their glances, she shrugs. "Ask Eyja. She saw Santana do it on the battlefield."

Eirik licks his lips thoughtfully. "All the more reason to put her in the ground. You kill her and the draugar go with her."

"Even trying will make you lose too many men, and then what? You have another five hundred draugar making the problem worse."

His eyes narrow. "Why are you defending her?"

Brittany nibbles on her bottom lip. "Because... I know her better than anybody else, and I love her more than anybody can know. She is not here to speak for herself, so I am her voice as she was for me before."

"Your fall from Valhalla scrambled your mind, girl."

"Maybe, but I know I can save her. It doesn't have to end like this."

"Fine." He leans back in his chair. "How?"

She shrugs helplessly, splaying out her hands. "I haven't thought that far. I need to see her first."

Eirik scoffs, taking a swig of his ale. "You went mad, too. Anything coming out of your mouth is utter horseshit."

"Your willingness to let your people die for a chance at failure is utter horseshit!"

His glare turns on her, furious, but though it prickles her jaw she stands her ground. This is bigger than her now, bigger than any of them. She can't afford to be weak.

"What did you say?"

"You heard me."

"Bretagne, this is not—"

"No!" she interrupts her father, cheeks reddening. "What do you think is going to happen? So you push a sword through her, then what? Assuming she can actually _die_ at this point, do you really think something as strong and ancient as the Old One is just going to wither away? When you release it, maybe it will kill all the animals, or drink the seas, o-or something just as bad! Sometimes death just _isn't_ the right answer!"

Knuckles white, the room is silent as the two face off at each other, Eirik's hand strangling the hilt of his sword.

"Then," Eirik says venomously, "what _is_ the right answer, Bretagne Piersson?"

"The Goddess says I can save her. That's all I know."

She sees the very moment his eyes close off, his mouth tightening with disbelief. Eirik is a man of sword and shield, never destined to be anything greater.

"You lost your mind the moment you were thrown out of the Great Hall. There is a reason that women are nothing other than _advisors_." His glance rolls to Betar. "Jarl Silverspear... see your daughter out of this meeting. I gave her a chance, but she gets nothing more from me."

His tone leaves no room for argument, and Betar nods slowly at her to leave. His eyes too have gone closed, mired in the mundane, but they are still soft as he begs her to leave. Her jaw tightens as her chair scrapes along the dirt floor and she makes her way to the exit.

Before she leaves, however, she turns over her shoulder.

"If you go after her, so many more will die," she warns quietly. "Your people have already suffered enough."

He makes no outward impression that she has been heard, and Brittany steps out into the dark.

* * *

><p>It doesn't take long for her to get a visitor.<p>

Eyja has gone to tend to those whose scars will not fade after the battle, leaving Brittany alone with the gentle fire that crackles in its hollow. Her little house is bathed in the glow, and the firelight reflects until her whole being looks like it is washed in ethereal light, bounding from the polished metal of her weapons, but Brittany sees only the yawning portal staring into the flames too long creates. This fire is not godlike, not the beaming white she knows, but it holds divinity well enough.

Maria silently enters the space and perches beside her on the bench, silently taking up watch. She smells like what Brittany imagines Iberia to be; spices and sand and the lingering remnants of the sun no matter how many days she spends in this frozen wasteland. She should have seen the signs the moment Santana lost the juniper tang that hung on her breath, but she was foolish to believe that one girl can throw away an addiction as strong and reaching as power without it coming to haunt the broken slope of her shoulders.

"I believe you, you know." Maria breaks the contemplative mood, her fingers twitching as they move the flames of her own volition. Brittany watches their progress impassively, her portal flickering from existence. "About Ataecina."

"Then why didn't you say something?"

"Do you really think they would have believed me any more than you?"

She shrugs. "Better you than someone like me."

"Better none of us at all in their eyes. Come, Brittany, tell me of the Goddess."

Maria fetches her some soup from the bubbling pot hanging overhead as she recounts her brief time in the eternal realm, the way Ataecina held her hands and whispered words of wisdom. She told her of Sam, and of conflicting commands, and how even Santana's own deity thought she went mad. Maria listens seriously and attentively until she finishes, and blows out a breath when she does.

"It seems finding Santana grows more urgent by the second."

"Why?"

"When you left, they spoke of battle strategies. Eirik seems intent on marching his forces out to confront her directly."

"But they'll die... if they don't freeze first."

"In the end, he is the king. His people will follow."

"But that's _stupid._" Brittany threads her fingers through her hair in frustration, tearing at it. "They have to realize that fighting her won't work."

"Maybe... but they still have to try."

She puts her soup down, suddenly nauseous.

"Santana won't show mercy again. I can almost... _hear _her, like the barrier has holes. Everything is so crazy and so angry and she _wants_ them to come to her, so she can..." she trails off, not being able to bear the complete sentence. "What if Ataecina is wrong, Maria? What if she is beyond saving?"

"Do you believe that?"

"I..." Though her mind tells her yes, her heart reminds her of the girl wrapped up in her bedding, fingers tangled together like night and day, eyes soft and dark and void of hatred. Her hand skimmed down the delicate curve of her hip and rested cradled in its dip, her thumb smooth and subtle against the flawless skin of her hidden joint where Santana would shudder, pushing herself closer into her warmth. These moments of perfection are the constant reminder of the face behind the monster's mask, the future as well as the past.

"No. She's still there."

"Good, good. So you believe you can save her?"

"Yes, but... how? Ataecina gave me no clues."

"All she does is point you in the right direction. You need to find the way."

Brittany groans and presses her palms into her forehead. "I hate magic. Why is everything all twisted and confusing?"

"Such is the nature of the gods."

"The gods are mean."

Maria smirks. "More than you will ever know."

Sandalio, previously hidden away under her feet, snuffles lazily to lick at Brittany's ankle. She scratches at his soft ears fondly. Sometimes he stares away across the sea as longingly as her, yearning for his mistress to return as she once was. "We can't do it alone."

"Oh, certainly. Santana always likes to make things difficult."

If they were to miraculously find their way to her, a small legion of amassing draugar could bar their path, let alone Santana herself. Brittany had grown greedy of Santana's near limitless power and how she could simply heal the wounds inflicted upon herself—Maria's hands are still glossy from her burns, the skin taut and fragile. They cannot rely on magic any more than they do on her own axe.

Maria's lips lift into the ghost of a smile. "Knowing her, she will have made herself a throne and castle by the time we find her... perhaps on a hill to watch the king's army stumble about."

"Are they a lost cause? Are you sure they cannot be persuaded?"

Her smile fades. "Your father allies with Eirik. He no longer wishes to anger him if it means protection for his town."

"Harald?" Brittany presses, a tinge of desperation in her tone. "He likes you. Ataecina said he would be a great ally."

"You killed his blood, Brittany. Do you really think he will help you?"

"Maybe not me... but you." She pauses as an afterthought. "And his people, of course."

Maria rolls her eyes. "This body has passed its prime for a lord to take notice."

Brittany scans her dubiously. "You barely look thirty."

"Flattery is the spirit's tongue, Brittany. If you think your sweet talk will work on me like my daughter, you're sorely mistaken."

Out of sight, she smirks at the redness that blooms across Brittany's cheeks and under her collar, glowing in the darkness. After a few seconds of stifling silence she removes the poor girl from her agony, promising to do her best. "We could look to the centaurs too. Magical beings are much more open to these sorts of talks."

Relieved at the change of topic, Brittany still finds it no great improvement. "Santana essentially called Philokrates a coward when we last met. I don't think he will want to speak to me again."

"Then make him. This is your last chance before he's stolen away and the opportunity lost."

The thought isn't a comforting, but one can't be picky when making a fortress out of skeletons.

"Sophias will want to help, obviously," Maria continues, "and that nice centaur boy that keeps trying to find you."

"Hypotas?" Brittany asks, puzzled. She thought he was left at the Mother-Tree—there had been no sign of him since the centaurs had arrived in force.

"Ah, yes. He came a few suns ago, half-buried in snow. Said the caravans have all but stopped and they can come join the effort."

"Where are they?"

"In that copse of trees they've been sleeping in for the past while. There have been talks of them moving indoors recently—it's simply too cold for them to stand."

Brittany nods slowly, pondering. With three prominent members backing her, Philokrates would be hard pressed to refuse from anything but spite, at which point she could point out his grudge... she stamps down the flickering flame of enjoyment from such a thought. This is no time to be petty.

"Will you come with me?"

"Of course."

"Then we should go now, before Eirik can talk to them and ruin everything again."

As they go to leave, a flicker of movement catches Brittany's eye.

_A shame the ghosts are of no use,_ she thinks as she holds the door for Maria, _there seem to be so many these days. It would drive even a draugar mad._

The door shuts, and the shadows mutter their agreement.

...

Philokrates is as wizened as she remembers, his eyes like twin eclipses tracking them with utmost precision. She feels as small in his presence as the first day he denied her aid, saved only by Santana's knifling tongue cutting into his deepest scars.

"I was expecting your father."

Her eyes roam over his body, his people that shiver in the biting wind. Snow melts on his shoulders and drips into icy rivers that melt upon his hide, making his golden belt gleam. He looks every bit a frozen lord, far removed from his warm homelands in the distant past.

"Are you going to simply stand there, or do you have something to say?"

Brittany blinks and shakes the cobwebs from her head.

"My father and I have had... a disagreement over the path to take."

"And what makes you think you know better than he?"

"I... well, in terms of experience, I don't—"

"Then why, little warrior, are you here?"

"Stop being such a sour old log, Philokrates."

Sophias comes to flank her other side, resting a hand on her shoulder. Brittany exhales in relief at her grounding presence, letting it fill her in the way Santana's used to, what seems like so long ago. "Let the girl speak, yes? She gave her life for her people, surely that deserves a chance to be heard."

He eyes her critically, lingering over her stomach where her scars have sewed themselves shut. His silence speaks entire tomes.

"My father thinks Santana should be killed," Brittany blurts out, nervously rocking on her heels. "But he's wrong. She's still there somewhere... I can feel her inside my heart."

"Why is he wrong? It seems a reasonable thought."

"She grows too strong, lord. Death is not a friend to people taken by this sort of magic."

"How do you know?"

"I heard it speak to her sometimes, before all of this. It has waited too long just to let her die."

"You meddle in things you little understand, Bretagne. Warriors are not meant to know of magic."

"When the Old One brought me back, my lord... it broke something in me. I know your world because the spirits whisper to me when I sleep, and I dream of a golden hall I will never reach. If you wouldn't strike me, I'd say I know more of death than you."

A smirk tugs unwillingly at his lips. "I always listen to those that speak their minds, little one."

She swallows. "You didn't when you first met me."

Sweat beads on her brow as his stare threatens to drill through her, to deconstruct her being until he can see the anxiety that blooms as a rotten rose in the hollow of her chest and tug it out like her re-beating heart. Surprisingly, he allows her bluntness to be mistaken for boldness and nods his agreement, playing with the belt around his waist.

"When I first met you, you had not loved and lost like many of us have. Grief makes us rash and reckless, child, but it too makes us brave."

Brittany swallows the painful lump that remains a constant reminder of exactly _how_ much she could lose—letting her breathe for a moment, Maria squeezes her hand.

"Ataecina appeared to her in a dream, my lord. I trust you know of the Goddess?"

His eyes slide over to the High Priestess curiously.

"The Mother? Yes, I do. She has treated my people well, those who have chosen to follow."

"Then believe us when we stay that _this_ is the path to follow now."

The leader sighs, his great hooves stamping in the snow. Brittany notes that he wears his son's medallion from a great chain around his neck, the red eyes set and gleaming in the fading winter sun. If she listens closely enough, it hisses.

"What you ask of me, girl... it is a hefty burden."

Emboldened by his contemplation, she bounces eagerly on her spot. "I know, Philokrates, and I'm sorry I got your people involved in this mess. I never meant for any of this to happen the way it did."

He smiles crookedly, the motion strange on his face. "Yes, well, who expects the meddling of gods?"

Sophias advances until she grips his hands tightly, their wizened skin melding together until her markings seemingly run onto his own, pulsing and vibrating. The forest has not yet been robbed of life, and so long as its faint heartbeat remains so too will hers etched into her flesh.

"You see the nights grow longer still when they should be shortening," she murmurs quietly, stroking her thumb against the back of his hand, "until soon, there will be no sun left at all. The darkness is not something we can fight alone."

"We left all this treachery behind when we left home, Sophias."

"_This_ is our home now, old friend. Will we stand back and watch it burn?"

The centaur, unreadable for a moment, looks into the distance.

"You are sure you can do what needs to be done?"

"No," Brittany admits before she can stop herself. Heat pools under her collar but she forges on despite the tips of her ears burning cherry-red. "But I know that if anyone in the world can bring her back, it will be me."

He looks to her, roaming over her wind-whipped cheeks and bold stance. A faint smile tugs at his lips. "You've changed, Bretagne. The scared child you used to be is gone."

"William ran her through with his sword, my lord, and Santana ate what remained."

"And yet you return to her."

"I always will."

He nods and motions for his people to gather around him, blocking her from the conversation. She chews her lip as the hushed, murmuring voices fill the copse in a multitude of languages, some so ancient she doubts they remain elsewhere except with them. More centaurs than she thought existed come from the skeletal trunks to discuss with their leader, eyes tired but bright.

"Almost the entire clan is here, Brittany," Maria whispers to her. "They all wanted to help."

Philokrates steps before her, his hands falling cold onto her shoulders. He bends until she can see the deep furrows that run through his face, chapped from winter's never-ending frost and years of struggle. From behind him, she sees Hypotas grin.

"I thought I knew all there was to know, little one, but mortals never cease to surprise me with the ferocity in which they love. I will listen to my people and your goddess."

"You mean..."

"I will ride with you, Bretagne of Kaupang."

She lunges and wraps her arms around his waist the best she can, squeezing so hard her muscles threaten to pop. He can hear her mumbling _thank you_ into his skin over and over again, a mantra that remains muffled even as she jumps on the spot. He smiles, watching the wise and unyielding warrior he caught a glimpse of disappear into the excited expression of her gratitude. Mortals are such complex creatures; such fast maturity clashes constantly with the remnants of their carefree youth. To find a balance and become a meld of both, without letting the other devour, will be the only way Brittany can shoulder these burdens in a way that will bring Santana home.

"There is one more matter to attend," Maria announces with a smile. "The Sami wish to speak with you."

"With me? Why me?"

"I may have told them of your plan," Sophias reveals slyly, coming to flank her other side. "They wish to speak firsthand to the Valkyrja of the North."

"The... wait, the _what_?"

"That is what my people call you. The Sami must have overheard."

"Why would they call me something like that?"

"You have seen the great hall, Bretagne, and deserve a title just as honorable. A name such as this is a sign of respect in our world."

Their footsteps crush through the thick snow as they make their way to the outskirts of Kaupang where the Sami tents have set up like great aurochs, deep brown against the sparkling snow. In the twilight that has descended over the midday landscape they simply appear as blobs of greater darkness, and Brittany cannot distinguish the Sami children from the whispering spirits flitting about the landscape.

"Do they bother you, child?" Maria asks softly, noting the way her eyes dart about the forest.

Brittany shrugs, rubbing the nape of her neck where a million invisible eyes watch her from the tree trunks. "They've started to get meaner. They don't let me sleep."

"Have you tried to talk to them?"

"So many times, but I always just end up talking to my chair or the snow. Half the village thinks me mad."

"You are, just a bit."

Their conversation is interrupted by an old woman that emerges from one of their tents, her reindeer hide dress decorated in a colourful array of bands and and dyes. She smiles, her pale skin crinkling at the eyes, and gestures for them to come inside. After a bit of struggle Sophias manages to squeeze in after them, laboriously falling to her knees to better manage in the small tent.

If the woman before was old, the man in front of them is ancient. His wrinkled skin, chapped and tough from years in the harsh climate, folds when he outstretches his hands to them in greeting. Brittany clasps them in her own and bows low, nearly singeing her hair in the small fire that crackles at their feet.

"It is an honor to meet one so respected," she smiles, only to be brushed off with a wave.

"Ah, I should be the one honored to meet you, Valkyrja of the North. We have heard much of your exploits."

They settle down around the flames, offering their guests strips of reindeer meat from the steeds killed in battle. The old man tells them that learning to ride is a fairly new practice, though his people have held domesticated reindeer for hundreds of years. It is in their blood, as surely as war is in hers.

"I would like to think there are some things we can change about ourselves," Brittany sighs. "If I could, I would like to hang up my axe once this war is over."

"Your people are too much a warrior for that to be in your future."

"I know, but the dream is a nice one."

They learn that his name is Sabbe, and he was the first to accept their call for aid. He does not know the elder they met on their first visit to Finnmörk, not personally, but assumes he is among the ones brought together by the impending threat.

"It is a rarity for so many _Saami_ to be in one place," he divulges, shrugging under his thick reindeer coat. "We are usually divided into little groups to better track the migrations."

"So... you are their leader?"

"Oh, not at all! I am but a simple_ noaidi _that helps the people come together."

"Sorry... a what?"

"A... shaman, if you will. I am the link between the mundane world and the free world, as are the others like me scattered about the encampment." He studies her, his glacier eyes inquisitive. "You have seen the free world before, warrior. I see it in your spirit."

She glances over his shoulder to where a shadow slinks into the floor. "I see it all the time now. It won't leave me alone."

"This brings us to the point of this visit, then, doesn't it?"

Already up to date on the current problem at hand, Sabbe adjusts his long tunic, peeking out between the opening of his reindeer coat; flashes of bright greens and blues wink at her, embroidered by a metallic gleam that catches the soft firelight.

"What do you wish from the _Saami, _Bretagne?"

She tells him of her dream with the Goddess and the darkness that has gripped Santana tightly, smothering. She tells him of the Old One and its whispers in the night, how the draugar raise to its call, how it winds itself into her lover's flesh until no-one truly knows where she ends and it begins. She tells, also, of the new urgency she senses—a quickening of the wind, a pulse in the water. The Old One (Santana? She doesn't know anymore,) searches for something.

Sabbe sits back for a moment, his old bones creaking. "You believe she can be saved?"

"I do."

Sophias nudges her. "There is another thing you wish to say."

Brittany sheepishly rubs at the back of her neck. "When Samuel lived, I heard him talking of a thing the Christians practice where they cast out a soul that does not belong in another body. He called it an... ex... exercise?"

"Exorcism," Maria corrects softly. "They invoke the name of the White Christ to cast out the offending spirit."

"The name?" Brittany asks, confused. "What good would that do?"

"They think it helps."

"I do not know much of the White Christ and his ways," Sabbe muses, "but perhaps the practice can be altered for our use. If this continues, I fear the darkness will swallow the land in its entirety."

Sophias sighs, her hooves shuffling restlessly along the ground. "The animals grow scarce and my people hungry, and the spirits... they are agitated. They call out to each other in the night, bound to the earth."

"Why can't they leave?"

Her eyes slide over to Brittany. "The Old One traps their souls here. They grow bitter and direct this pain to those who feel it."

Brittany pokes at the fire glumly with a stick. "People like me, right?"

"People like you."

Sabbe hums, tugging on his coat. His metallic bangles clink with his contemplations. "I will talk with the elders and the other _noaidi. _They may have some clues as to the nature of these troubles—both the spirits and the darkness. Should we go speak with them now?"

They file their way out of the tent, the frigid winter air stilling the breath in their lungs. The talons of winter cut like a blade, stinging exposed skin red then waxy white, freezing some animals solid under the snow. Outside, the Sami take great care in butchering their steeds in a way that harvests their natural heat before they freeze to the bone – unlike her own people, they are not yet beginning to show the signs of winter's blow.

"Your people are great hunters," she says, impressed, watching two young boys of roughly fifteen summers laboriously drag a skinny elk through the snows on a sled. "I've hardly seen any game, let alone caught it."

Sabbe shrugs, smile pleased. "We rely on the land and its givings to sustain ourselves. When you do this for many years, you become adept."

Barking catches her ear, and Brittany turns to see Sandalio bounding about with a few youths, his black and white coat streaking through the snow. He flicks ice chunks in their direction with his nose and they squeal as they dive away, whipping him with snowballs that stick to his thick fur. Upon noticing his mistress, every hair on his body vibrates with excitement, nearly knocking her over as he rushes her in his desire to play.

He laps at her cold cheek and whines as she pushes his freezing paws off her thighs, rubbing against her shins instead. Sabbe crouches to scratch at his ears, bony fingers travelling easily through his silky coat.

"How strange for a warrior to have a gáccit."

Brittany looks at him quizzically from her crouched position.

"A helper spirit. They usually accompany the _noaidi's _free spirit in their journeys to other worlds, but may reveal themselves in this world."

She eyes Sandalio, breath billowing from his open mouth and tongue lolling to one side. "He was Santana's, originally. After we met he grew fond of me."

He smiles. "Sharing a gáccit is a very powerful bond, Bretagne. You do right searching for her."

"I hope so."

They leave for the other elders, Brittany staying with her dog and the children that were playing with him. She looks him up and down.

"You don't look like a majestic helper spirit."

He lets out a disgruntled _whumpf_ and flicks snow in her face.

She responds by stuffing his muzzle in the snow until he pounces her and the two of them are rolling about in the coldness, struggling for dominance, vaguely aware of the children who giggle and tentatively join in, chuckling little handfuls of snow at them. She knows nothing of the language that they whisper amongst each other, but the squeal as she whips a snowball and it dissolves into powder in their hair needs no words. The clearing turns into a wild flurry of limbs and flying snow, diving for cover as Sandalio pins her down and the youngsters stuff snow down her collar.

The esteemed Valkyrja of the North yelps and rolls about like a beached fish, driving her hands up her winter coat in an effort to scoop it out—her sodden rabbit-fur mittens chill her skin and the children laugh as she does a dance to rid herself of the intrusion. When she finally fishes the melted mush from her shirt, she holds it in her mitt, water seeping around her frozen fingers.

"You want some of this?" she calls, thumping through the snow to the children who squeal and scatter. "Get back here!"

Half-way through her chase, she notes how silent the world has become—her steps slow as she notices that her feet make no noise as they break through the crust. Still holding the soggy snowball, she blinks and looks around; the camp has voided itself of life, the steaming carcasses abandoned and tents empty. An uneasy curl of her stomach has her free hand clutching at her chest as the silent winds stir the skeletal branches.

"Hello?" she calls, flinching back as a flurry of angry whispering meets her ears. Brittany whips around, now holding her snowball like a weapon, eyes searching through the shadows to find the flickering forms of the figures who keep her awake swarming agitated in the nearby trees. Every so often she catches glimpses of their pale faces, blue lips lined with frost, eyes like sunken pits glaring into the unknown. One turns to her and she feels paralyzed, stricken as she stares into the face of the first man that fell under her blade when the rage claimed her.

She makes to step away but his mouth opens unnaturally wide, face stretching until she can stare into the gaping maw of the ghost, foul breath coming in dark clouds. His eyes bore into her as he unleashes a shriek that has her stumbling, ears ringing, dropping her snowball in fright. The others join him until the clearing is a cacophony of screaming and the discomfort in her chest increases to an agony, searing as she drops to her knees to cover her ears with her hands. Even still the noise follows her, morphing into a more human sound—people dying and burning appear in flashes of her mind's eye, a voice calling through it all, exhilarated. As the smoke clears and the screaming turns into an unbearable drone, an unmistakable figure appears, its presence prompting another bolt of pain—albeit of a different kind—through her body.

Brittany catches but a glimpse of Santana's smile, curled up into a sinister smirk, but it is enough. Hands shake her and all at once the picture vanishes, fracturing into a million tiny shards; she cries out and reaches for the phantom remainder of her lover, only for her outstretched hand to be caught and brought back to her chest by another, older touch.

Maria rocks her as she settles back into her own body and soothes her gasping sobs, calming her cries. The world is ringing so loudly that she can barely hear a thing and those horrible shadows are still watching her, their glare accusing, flickering in the distance. Sophias wards the wide-eyed children away as Sabbe kneels before her.

"What is it, Bretagne?" he asks, grasping her face in his hands. "What did you see?"

"I—I saw... I don't..." But she _does_, the excited murmuring she heard unmistakable. "Santana..."

"What about her?" Maria urges, holding her close.

"Whatever she was looking for... she found it."

* * *

><p><strong>January 13<strong>**th****, 913**

_Catch him. _

Santana watches, only mildly interested, as the lone draugr slinks (as well as a moving corpse can slink) out of the tree line. She had been playing this game for hours, perhaps days—time does not move the same as it used to—but grows tired. She hungers once again for the scent of death and the rumblings within herself grow hard to resist.

Her servant moans with fetid breath as he brings back her pet, struggling weakly, tossing him unceremoniously at her feet. Finngeirr refuses to look at her as he sprawls in the snow, his tear-stained face half hidden.

"Where did you think you were going?" she asks him, amused. "An oaf with no hands will not survive in the forests for long."

He sniffles, wiping at his eyes with his forearm. "Then at least I would die away from you."

"Come now, you know you won't get off that easily."

A dark cord stretches itself from his collar until the other end is deposited in her palm, linking them together. Santana closes her eyes and breathes in deeply, searching the snows for an iota of sound. She, too, notices how the forests have been stripped of life, her plague scaring them away; indifferent to the animals she lets them run, preoccupied with... different prey. They say humans are superior to beasts, but how smart can one be when they do not run from the hunter?

A small gathering of heartbeats thump only a quarter day-walk from her current position. The cold slows their bones and makes them easy to chase down, her new soldiers unbothered by the biting winds. Their steps are slow, however, and she finds herself waiting for them long after she has arrived.

(Sometimes she gets a little impatient.)

They set off in the freezing dark under the cold light of the moon. She supposes it's night now—it's so difficult to tell the different that she's stopped trying, her world permanently dipped in darkness. Didn't Brittany say it was supposed to be getting lighter around this time of year?

She swallows the jolt of pain that comes from her chest at the remembrance of Brittany, jerking Finngeirr roughly in reaction. She's kept her mind occupied, warding off thoughts of her, but they still slither in regardless, as dark and wanting as the things that must sleep in the bottom of the roiling ocean. Every day she spends without her touch turns her colder, her breath misting out from her lungs even in warmed places. The more she thinks about her, the more pain it takes to erase her memory.

"Get up," she snarls when Finngeirr sprawls out again in the snow, unable to struggle to his feet without the use of his hands. He cries out when he falls on his mangled one and curls into a feeble ball around it. "I have half a mind to chop that one off too, coward."

With the help of the draugar the warrior gets to his feet, mumbling something under his breath.

"What did you say?"

She sees the flicker of defiance in his eyes before she hears it.

"I wanted to know what crawled up your ass and got stuck this time."

He regrets his attempt at rebellion the moment he sees those wretched tendrils unfurl from the cavity of her back, Santana's smile venomous as they hover like unravelling wings.

"Did your mother never teach you any manner of self-preservation?"

All at once he's flying through the air, flung skyward by her tendrils, breath caught in his throat as one whips him solidly around the waist and knocks the air from his lungs. Finngeirr tumbles and spies the ground rushing towards him, praying for a swift death as he plunges back down to the snowy ground. But there is no thump, no breaking bones and bleeding out, only that gnawing acid on his skin and those fleshy limbs holding tight to his body as they stop his violent descent. He cracks one eye open to see the snow suspended inches from his face, sweet release now out of reach. A distraught sob bubbles from his throat as he is once again denied rest.

"You thought I'd let you die so kindly? You learn quite slowly." She kneels to make eye-contact, brushing tears from his lashes. "That might explain why you keep trying to run, hm? A bit slow in the head?" Her knuckles rap against his temple. "It would explain that silly claim you always thought you had to her."

His eyes meet hers, puzzled, and a curse leaves her lips as she realizes she broke one of her biggest rules. Somehow, it always comes back to Brittany.

To distract him, Santana forces her lips into a smirk that comes more as a snarl.

"You need to learn how to behave."

Her tendrils wrap around his right arm and one thins itself into a whip so small it acts as a razor's edge, the meaty _thunk_ of it distinct as it cleaves through his wrist, straight down to the bone. He screams as it wraps around and saws through on the opposite side until blood pours from the wound, indistinguishable in all the mess.

She rolls her eyes at his writhing, thrashing about in the air. "Stop complaining."

Her fist comes down and her newfound strength snaps the bone in half, his mangled hand landing on the ground with nary a sound. Finngeirr howls even as her darkness comes to stop the bleeding in an identical way to the first.

"Look," she grins, "you match."

She stands as he begins to retch, skin as pale as the snow he hovers above. A welcome distraction, surely, but she has other things to do...

"Carry him," she commands the nearby draugar, "but I expect him to walk by day's end."

Two effortlessly pick up the sobbing boy and hold him awkwardly, head flopping about as they follow their mistress deeper into the forest. A trail of red trickles out behind them.

The excitement begins to burn as the calling of the hearts boom louder, so close they deafen her with the sound. The periods between have begun to dwindle—it was only a few days ago (or was it yesterday?) that another town fell under her fist, burnt to ash and their descendants wiped from the threads of time. From time to time she lets one escape to spread their warning to the others; Nor Veg has been draped in a blanket of fear and she thrives in her own smothering shadow.

Her group happens upon a little village, still and silent in the ice-covered night. All is quiet, but the life she tasted earlier is gone, trickling into mist. Curious, she tracks languidly along the little fishing shacks, feet making a shallow imprint in the hard snow—doors hang open and let warm air out into the night, the scent of a cooking pot abandoned. In the flickering darkness she spies the unmoving corpses of men scattered about their own rooms. She frowns.

The hoot of a victory call draws her attention outward, to the shelter of an outcropping where her godly eyes spot a fire that illuminates the side of a cliff—she commands her servants to stay as she alone climbs the steep slope, her tendrils pulling her up and over boulders. The scent of blood is strong here, but it reeks of much more than that.

She hears them before she sees them, their naked silhouettes howling and raving, casting frightful shadows upon their faces. Berserkir are strange beings at the best of times, and she learned her repulsion from her mate—she watches as the biggest one, clad in only a bear-skin, stoops down in front of a group of bound women and lewdly palms one of their breasts, tugging roughly until she cries out and begs for him to stop. Unlike her friends, she still has clothing on.

_The best for last,_ whispers the man's mind as she stares into his soul. Santana grimaces, disgusted.

The fire dulls to a small flicker as she makes herself known, bare feet untouched by the jagged rocks. All the singing and celebrating silences—those that were enjoying their victory spoils pause and withdraw, standing to their full height with no care for clothing nor the blood of the virgins they violated on their skin.

"One would think you would stop acting like raving dogs before sinking your teeth into your prize," she drawls, curling her fingers and watching as the flames bend towards her. "Perhaps you would last longer than an animal."

The man in the bear-pelt snarls, his massive bulk towering. If this was seasons ago, she might have been scared. "An' who do you think you are, little girl?"

"Just... a curious passerby."

"Oh?" He advances, skin washed in the dim flame. "Wha' about curious for my cock? Thas' what happens to little girls who run their mouth."

"Please. You touch me with that and you lose it."

The others chuckle and she arches an eyebrow, challenging.

Her aggressor comes almost within reaching range. "I've dealt with men far more dangerous than you."

She feels her tendrils come from the openings in her back, writhing. The fire changes direction, sending its light flickering into her monochrome eyes.

"I don't think you have."

True to her word her tendrils wrap around the man's member, crushing, and with a sharp yank rips it clean off his body. She grins as he falls to his knees, blood spurting out onto the rocks; those still afflicted with the bloodlust charge her and she has no qualms about pulling the limbs from their joints nor the organs from their bodies, flinging them every which way until one lands on the small fire and puts it out. Her own hands flare into being, a dazzling white light that is almost blinding when seen with the snow, and her fireballs chase them out into the night until one by one, they tumble from the cliff where the draugar descend on their battered bodies.

She rolls over the man she had emasculated, tilting his head to the side with her foot. He sputters and gasps, hands clenching and unclenching over his groin, never wanting to touch the ravaged area but too consumed by pain to think of anything else. Santana clicks her tongue in disappointment, smirk savage.

"Are these the mighty berserkir, then? How disappointing—perhaps you will better live up to your new status."

If he lives to see it. Blood leaks from his pelvis in great spurts of red, sullying the ground beneath him. She doubts he'll survive until morning.

_No shame in that_, she muses, stepping over his writhing body to approach the shivering woman pushed up against the far side of the rock face. They flinch as she stands before them, eyes wide, taking her in. Even those that were sobbing earlier have fallen silent.

Santana crouches to the one that the emasculated man had touched, studying her intently. She supposes she could be pretty if she had any inclination for physical touch, her brown hair curling around her face and delicate jaw trembling just the slightest. She takes more pleasure in the uncertainty of her expression than the swell of her breasts, tilting her jaw with one finger.

"Are the men all dead?" she asks her softly. "In the village?"

The girl nods hesitantly, swallowing. Her eyes search for the voices that echo within this strange person's own, but finds no other figures standing guard. Then, almost as if drawn, her gaze falls on the tendrils fanning out like withered wings.

"T-thank you for saving us, but... what are we going to do without the men?" she whispers fearfully. "We cannot run a village alone."

Santana smiles then, but the angles are wrong and full of a mirth only she knows.

"Who said I was saving you?"

...

Later, when she flicks the flesh of the girl from her hair into the freezing ocean, a presence stirs in her head. She slows her task, frowning, allowing her hands to drop as she ducks herself momentarily under the icy waters. Sound comes in distant echoes of the waves beating upon the shore and the angry wind whipping at the surface, but she forces herself deeper into the depths where she closes her eyes and remains. It's peaceful down here, easier to concentrate—the voice of the presence comes through.

_Mistress! _

Though the title still fits uneasily around her shoulders, Santana allows it. His excitement fills her lungs better than oxygen may, stirring a shiver of anticipation through her limbs.

_What is your news, Styrr?_

_I found it, priestess! I found what my master was looking for!_

Her eyes snap open, and they throb darkly in the gloom of the ocean. Violent excitement, of the likes she has not felt in moons, burns through her veins that have become black and cold with rot.

_Where? Where must we march?_

_ In the south, priestess, just like it said._

She propels herself upwards, breaking the surface with a gasp and holding herself suspended, hovering above the water. Her rags stick to her skin but the frost is a welcome distraction to the searing anticipation that moves its way through her mind.

_But _**where**_, Styrr? _

_ Rome, mistress. A place called Rome._


	29. Chapter 29

**A/N:** Two more chapters, people. We're almost there.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 29<strong>

**one part of you is dying**

**and the other is running wild**

**January 14****th****, 913**

Santana plans her trip by the light of the moon.

Now known to her, she hears the artifact's ancient heartbeat calling to her in this place called Rome, pounding like a drum cemented in the center of the world. It infects her thoughts, fills her with restless anticipation, allows her no respite from anything other than the promise of its power. She had asked Styrr for details, but he simply smirked in a way that carried through his voice, promising that all would unravel in her hands once she reached him. Too eager to set out, she agreed and left him be.

Bathed in the cold glow of the stars, she taps her claws against her staff, black baubles bouncing. Though Styrr ensured the artifact will not move in the moons it would otherwise take her to reach it, the darkness has thinned her patience to a razor's edge—the time it would take for all the draugar and their stiff joints to trample across the kingdoms to her goal robs her of precious winter, where the snows halt the human armies in their tracks. (It's strange that she doesn't count herself as human now, but mortality fits wrong about her shoulders.) Her only choice is to leave them behind and hope that their loyalty is enough to carry them south, chasing the echoes of her footsteps.

Her nails run delicately along their jaws, humming to herself as she takes in their states of decay. The frost has halted their decomposition and her power lends them a false warmth, allowing them to be limber where the cold would have frozen them solid. She can always make more, but... she's so grown fond of her servants. It would be a waste to release them back into the earth when there's so much to do.

"Perhaps some of you may yet accompany me," she muses, eyeing one of the worse for wear. His jaw hangs loosely from his face and his ribs stick out in awkward angles from his torso, but he grumbles dutifully and turns to her, eyes nearly white in death. "But I doubt the kingdoms would take lightly to all of you parading across their lands."

Styrr's warning rings heavily in her ears, as strong as she may be. Her goal is to be as swift as possible to claim her prize. Once that is completed, armies will crumble under her fist, no matter how many might try to strike her. But for now...

She chooses twenty of those least decomposed, their bodies waxy and grey but intact. Their amble is more of a stride and they never tire, allowing her to cover much more ground than waiting for the other eighty or so whose joints have begun to give. Her whisper frees the others from their undead torment; her gaze travels leisurely over their corpses that crumple to the ground to spy Finngeirr, shivering and prone amidst the bodies.

"How you wish you were them now, hm?" she taunts with a smirk, letting his dark leash snake into her hand once again. He glowers but refuses to comment, something about the emptiness of his eyes spawning a discomfort within her. (His pain does not give her as much pleasure as it used to. She craves more than just his screams.) "Death can hold out a little while longer. It bends to _my_ whim now."

* * *

><p><strong>January 16<strong>**th****, 913**

"_What?_"

The snarl echoes through the longhouse and Brittany sighs, slumping down into her chair. Eirik has taken up residence in her father's seat, contemptuous of its rightful place, defiling it with his foul temperament. She sees how it pains her father but he stays nothing, already treading a fine line with accepting Harald as a formal ally of Kaupang but suns before.

"I-I apologize, my lord, but that is what I saw."

"I've half a mind to think your eyes diseased! Leave me."

The scout scurries away, cloak pulled tight around his ears, vanishing into the unforgiving night. Eirik leans back in his chair and takes another gulp of his cup, cheeks ruddy. Not used to the pains of leadership, he turns to drink to fortify himself, nabbing the supplies of private stores for his own use. The villages grumbles its discontent.

"Aarhus," he mutters to himself, heavily resting his head upon his palm. "How can she be in Aarhus? The centaur said she was north."

"That was days ago, lord," Betar reminds him, sucking absently on a pipe. "She moves quickly."

"Nothing moves that quickly."

Betar and Brittany share a knowing glance.

"Do we require another meeting? I can send a thrall to fetch Harald and the centaurs."

"We require a thousand men not starving to their bones and a winter without snow, that's what we _require,_" Eirik sneers, sighing his resignation after he registers the bite in his words. "We also need a way to divine her journey without the blasted use of magic. I curse Loki for even allowing this damned power into our lands."

Brittany's nails bite into her chair, but Betar's heavy hand presses it down into the wood. "Perhaps if we were to ask Sophias—"

"I said no magic," Eirik snaps, slumping back into his chair with a sigh. Brittany sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, seized with such an intense distaste it threatens to smother. With a murmured apology she exits the longhouse and makes the quick journey to Eyja's home. Her own bed has remained barren since Santana left and she fully intends it to remain that way until she returns.

(Though she knows in her heart of hearts that there is no going back. The things Santana has done has exempted her from redemption in the eyes of her people, and she must soon choose between her duty and her love.)

She quietly nudges her way into Eyja's hut, scratching at Sandalio's ears as she passes. Ever since her _episode,_ he has remained glued to her side, only staying elsewhere when she commands it. He snuffles and licks at her fingers as she curls around him on the thick bearskin rug that has become her bed, burying her face into his fur.

"You miss her too, don't you?"

He sighs his agreement, turning momentarily to press his cold nose to the crook of her jaw.

"I know, my friend. I know."

...

The now familiar feeling of leaving her own body envelops her, and Brittany doesn't open her eyes until the scent of fresh grass invades her senses. She squints, unused to the glaring sun after months spent in darkness, rubbing at her eyes. At first glance nothing has changed since her last visit, but she notes how the blackness from the barrier has begun to creep forward and darken the ground with rot, squishing underneath her feet. Ataecina's forest lives on, undisturbed, but the outlying grasses tilt and wither.

"Sad, isn't it?"

Brittany turns, reaching for her axe out of reflex only to come up with nothing. A familiar face smiles back at her, white robe pristine, hair swept from his eyes.

"Oh, _Sam,_" she chokes out, throwing her arms around his neck. Her last memories of him are of grey skin and burning hair and the persistent scent of death. He squeezes her back and smiles into her scalp, running his hands across her back.

"None of that," he scolds gently. "I've not brought you here to mourn."

"Seems that's all anyone does recently, isn't it?"

"But you were never just anyone."

He takes her hand, much in the way the Goddess has done, and together they sit amongst the flora that sprouts up from all sides, greedy and drunk on Ataecina's care. His blood, still dribbling from his hands, smells like flowering plants and everywhere it falls the grass swells with life. She traces the angles of his features over and over lest it be burned from her memory, much in the way his body was burned from the earth.

Samuel smiles, eyes twinkling. "No need to act so manic."

She blushes, caught. "Apologies. I just... we miss you."

"As do I. Both of you, so much."

He runs his thumb over her scarred knuckles and she smiles, gripping his fingers tightly.

"Do you like it here?"

Samuel looks around at the life bounding around him, the chatter in the trees.

"Strangely... yes. I always thought my place would be by God's side when I died, but circumstance has a way of putting things into a different light. My visit to your lands proved this to me."

At her pained expression, he shakes their joined hands reassuringly. "Do not feel guilt, my friend. Death was but the beginning of a greater journey for me."

"I just wish your first journey wasn't cut short so quickly."

"You, of all people, should know that the whims of the fates can seem cruel to us."

_Cruel is one way of putting it..._

At the fall of her features, he sighs and wraps an arm around her shoulders. She leans into his warmth, the whisper of his robes soft against her skin. "Apologies, Bretagne. I watched as Santana brought you back... I know how hard it is to be ripped from the sky."

As they talk the barrier pulses, the sky above it bloated with thunder. It booms to what she knows is Santana's heartbeat, pounding and resonating inside her own chest. The strings that weave them together may be tangled and knotted, but they are still joined—her breath is her lover's, her heartbeat not her own.

"Why am I here?" Brittany asks softly. "You only take me away for a purpose."

The lines of his face go hard with resolve, rough edged and granite with worry. The light around him dims as he turns to her with a secret on the tip of his tongue.

"I know where Santana is going."

She sits up, feet shuffling. "Wha— how?"

"I am still bound to God, though I may not serve him directly... I know when his disciples are in danger. She seeks to go south, to the Lord's place of worship."

He sighs at her blank stare.

"A place called Rome, Bretagne. It is where the Pope lives."

"The what?"

"The... jarl of our faith. He guides our spiritual learning and divines messages from the Lord."

Her nose wrinkles. "Why would a faith have a jarl? You can't command a person to believe in something if they don't wish to."

"That's... it's not important. What _is _important is that Santana seeks an artifact, nestled deep within the city of Rome. A crown."

"But those are what kings wear. Why would the Pope have it?"

"That remains out of my knowledge. But it was worn by Lord Jesus as he died on the cross," he stalls at her confused expression, "which is a long and confusing story, not important right now... but what _is_ important is that his holy blood and will is still infused in that crown. Her getting hold of it means nothing but bad things."

She chews on her lip anxiously, bouncing her knee. "What kind of bad are we talking about? Level mountains bad, eternal darkness bad, barren wasteland bad?"

"Eating gods bad."

The sudden anticipation in her chest makes sense now, the impatience for the unknown to reveal itself into her waiting hands. Santana craves so desperately for the power that it erases any other rational thought, infecting her mind like the plague that took so many years and years ago. She feels it in her own head, a faint echo—whispering, wanting. Her bones ache with yearning for something that leads into ruin.

"What am I supposed to do? Rome is so far away and Eirik _hates_ me. How will I convince him?"

Samuel shrugs uncertainly, covering her hands once again with his own. "Look to other allies, perhaps?"

"_What_ other allies? Father has abandoned me, the centaurs are not large enough, poor Stórhríð has been through so much so quickly... is there even—"

She pauses, frowning. Ataecina's voice echoes in her head.

_ Those that were once your enemies may come to be your dearest support, my child. Do not cast them away._

"Harald," she groans, berating herself for not seeing it sooner. "He has such a large army, Eirik would be forced to listen." A pout forms on her lips, delicate and despondent. "But he hates me too."

"Are you sure about that?"

"I killed his nephew."

"Such is war... I have no doubt he has lost many times before."

Brittany sighs, running a hand over her hair. "I've little other choice."

Samuel smiles wryly. "Not if your people wish to live without fear."

A tug in her chest nearly knocks her from her perch, hands slipping from his. The bodily realm calls to her once again, singing a siren's song, tugging her soul back into the husk of her body. She grins as he squeezes her tightly again before letting go, holding her firmly by the biceps.

"Believe in yourself, my friend. You can do so much more good than you think."

Her heart swells and she sniffs back tears. "I'll miss you so much, Sam."

His smile is kind again, soft and patient. "I'm always with you, Bretagne. Right here." He taps over her chest to sense the thrum of her heart. "We all are. Never doubt that."

With his message nestled close to her soul, Brittany closes her eyes and allows herself to fall backwards through the worlds.

...

Harald is difficult to find alone, and Brittany finds her secret sitting heavy in her chest as another day goes by without action. The leaders brood around the table and she chews on her fingernails lest she say something she regrets—Eirik has let her back into the longhouse on the condition that she says nothing and does nothing, barely breathing lest it trigger his anger. Every fiber in her crawls to speak out, but she's grown so weary of Eirik's resistance and is silent to gather her energy.

"Another scout with news of the harlot's journey," he snarls, thumping his fist upon his desk. "Further than Aarhus now. She left it relatively unharmed, but all the winter game in the forests have fled with her passing."

Maria's eyes spark in the gloom, hot and white for a moment before settling. It casts light into the writhing shadows and gaping maws of those that murmur agitatedly, no longer content with remaining unheard. She swallows and ignores their cries.

"We know she seeks something," Betar muses, glancing over the large map unfurled across the table. "But where? Marching an army into East Francia would pose some... difficulties."

Brittany's bones hum with secrets and she attempts to share a glance with Maria, the only other privy to her knowledge. But the high priestess is too busy trading stares with Harald, his bulk hunched forward on his chair until his elbows hold him up. He sighs, the look on his face pleading, but he finds no remorse in Maria, who bores through him until she doesn't doubt she can see into his soul to set it alight. Harald runs a tired hand over his face, every bit the leader with everything to lose.

"I have a confession," he mutters into the table, leaning back when all eyes in the room turn to him. He grimaces, mail clinking. "I've been receiving scouts of my own with every caravan."

"News from your _master_?"

"_No_, news from our eyes across the kingdoms. There have been some... disturbances in the south."

"Iberia?" Maria asks, intrigued, and Brittany doesn't miss the way her eyes glint mischievously.

"Further east. Below East Francia."

Harald frowns. "It has been many years since our ships ventured that far. What could be happening in the milk-drinker's lands?"

"Draugar. Great hordes of them."

The room erupts into aggressive chatter, rolling this piece of information around their mouths. Eirik scowls like a thundercloud and leans himself forward.

"Impossible. The draugar are the girl's creation, and she is most certainly not on the other side of the land."

"I have the reports here, if you wish to verify them." He waves scraps of parchment in front of the king's face, taming a smirk as his illiteracy blooms into light. "Three separate reports, three separate months. All of them stem from Rome, the great city of the White Christ."

Brittany starts, looking to Maria. The priestess steadily avoids eye-contact, refusing to turn her attention from Harald who weaves a harrowing tale of cities being razed and citizens raising from the dead without any ability to protect themselves. Even East Francia has heard of murmurings in the night upon their southern fronts, villages mysteriously emptied of people. Trees wither and die without the nourishing sunlight so prevalent in their lands.

"This is too convenient," Betar mutters, "to be told as soon as we look for direction. It could be false... or a distraction."

"My people have never heard of a draugr, Jarl Silverspear. Their imaginations are strong, but perhaps not so deep as you believe."

"Then an attempt to throw us off her path?"

"Why? We had no idea as to her goal prior, no direction. Better to leave us alone."

Eirik stares silently into the fire, stroking his beard. "Why do you think this relates?"

"You said it yourself, my lord. The draugar are of Santana's brood. Nothing else can raise them."

"She's preparing," Maria says softly, stroking her pendant. "An army to greet her."

Brittany's breath threatens to burst in her lungs as Eirik debates, rolling it over in his head until she can almost hear the cogs turning at breakneck pace. A convincing argument, surely, but one should never underestimate the stubbornness of kings.

"War is no time for petty deceit, traitor lord."

"Then it seems sound I speak in nothing but truths."

The two of them stare and the tension vibrates so thick it seeks to strangle, grasping, Harald holding his ground with nary a twitch of his strong jaw. Eirik's eyes narrow to slits before relaxing, releasing his firm grip upon the table.

"The link is tenuous at best," he murmurs, "but it is all we have. If the reports are true, then we must slay her before the entire land is caught in her grip."

"We do not have the supplies to march, my lord."

Eirik looks up and the fire in his eyes is startling, a purpose placed in front of him once more. "Then we sail."

He gets up, chair clattering. "I must speak with father about this now that he is awake. If he is in agreement, prepare your men."

"Of course."

The occupants leave them room in shock, muttering between themselves. Brittany waits until Harald exits before sprinting after him, ignoring her father's want for her to wait. She grips the leader's shoulder before he has chance to get away.

"The reports," she huffs, "are they true? Are there really draugar in Rome?"

"See for yourself."

Harald presses the parchment to her chest and leaves with a nod of his head, clinking as he walks. Brittany rubs the material between her fingers, gingerly opening the cracked seal once more.

Nothing. Blank as a coward's gravestone.

* * *

><p><strong>January 18<strong>**th****, 913**

Brittany giggles as strong hands work between her toes, tickling the sole of her foot. Mikhail rubs soap into her skin with the same attention that he stokes the fires and shines the swords, wearing away any crease of dirt and hardship present upon her flesh. His firm grip massages her ankle and she sinks deeper into the soapy water, sighing.

"You're to sail, then?" he asks, taking a moment to rub underneath her knee, sudsy fingers running against the sensitive skin.

"Seems that way. King Haraldr sends Eirik with his blessing."

Mikhail hums thoughtfully, switching to her other foot. His hands press firmly into the arch to relax it. "All the way to Rome... in the middle of winter, no less."

She grimaces at the reminder. A moon spent trapped on a boat with no means of shelter while the sea and snow rages around their huddled forms... not the ideal way to spend her days. "I wish I could sail on Harald's boats. There would be far more place to stretch my legs."

"Where does Eirik think he can get all these on such short notice?"

"He wants to bring only half the men—enough food that way. The _knerrir_ arrived early this morn to load up the rations."

"Sounds like a sail to disaster, if you ask me."

Mikhail shakes his head, rotating around to kneel behind and pour water over her skull. Brittany sighs and leans back into his caring touch, a genuine smile gracing her lips for the first time in what feels like winters. "No need to worry like that," she teases, tipping her head back so she can look him in the eyes. "You've got the airs of a fretting housewife."

"You make me feel like one at times," he grumbles back, splashing water into her face. "Last time you went out to fight, you died."

"It'll be different this time."

"Will it?"

Brittany falls silent as his hands run along her scalp, rinsing the suds from her skin. There is a cold knot at the pit of her stomach that grows the longer it takes for them to part, the distance between her and Santana growing with each day. In the bustle of the preparations she's not often been in her conscious thought, but she lingers regardless like a ghost that has yet to be unbound from this world.

Mikhail sighs and runs his strong hands to knead out the tension that has gathered itself in her shoulders, warm against her skin. He sees the sorrow in the night when she thinks no one looks, how every motion is hollow and stilted without her lover by her side. Perhaps this is the only option, ruin or not, but it sits uneasily across his broad shoulders. Though a servant, he is also her kin.

"Regardless of the outcome, _vinur_, I will be here to welcome you home."

He feels the muscles tense under his palm and frowns, ducking to meet Brittany's eye. She swallows and draws her knees up to her chest, playing with the fine, wet hairs.

"What is it, Bretagne?"

He sees a flash of the Brittany before Santana, visible in the avoiding tilt of her gaze.

"You have to tell me now. It will eat at you until you wither away."

She sighs, staring at the wall of her home. "What if I told you I don't think I will be coming home?"

Mikhail's hands flex on her shoulders, surprised. She bites her lip and waits for the reprimand, but when it doesn't come, her panic only grows.

"I— I mean, it isn't for certain, but once Santana is freed and healed, I don't think Father would let her back here... after all that has happened. Maybe Eirik would still want her killed. We might have to leave Nor Veg—gods, even the north! It all seems so—" A gentle hand across her mouth halts her tirade, and her washbasin is spun so that Mikhail crouches now by her side, smile warm. She licks her lips when he pulls away.

"Vinur..." he begins softly, hands open and complacent. "I understand your desire and your conviction, but... have you ever thought of what will happen if Santana is not to be saved? You have seen the villages, what she did. This scar on the soul is not so easily washed away."

"I can't think of anything like that, Mikhail. It hurts too much."

(But she does, in the dead of night. Imagines Santana impaling her with those cursed wings, laughing as she gasps and bleeds to death, eyes devoid of the girl she used to know. She banishes them by Ataecina's light, but the darkness has a way of slithering in like the snake whispering wisdom to the unwilling.)

"I just... I do not wish you hurt again. If losing Valhalla caused you such pain, I hate to think what losing Santana would cause."

She smiles mirthlessly, standing. Water trickles down her skin like feeble waterfalls.

"Sometimes it feels like I've already lost."

He dries her in silence, handing her a thick, warm pair of trousers to slip on over her undergarments. A bright blue tunic and a braided leather belt cover her torso, the peek of linen from her under tunic disappearing in a ruffle of fabrics. Such a common ritual, known since he was but a slip of a boy, soon to be extinguished and buried under the ashes of war. Mikhail takes her damp hair between his fingers and winds it for the last time in the way he's done since childhood; tears prick his eyes and Brittany pauses in lacing her shoes when she feels him withdraw, turning in time to catch the first sniffle.

"Oh, my friend," she coos, engulfing his body in a hug. He clutches at her tunic until they form fists and her collar grows wet where his face is pressed, but she simply sways him in her embrace, humming off-key melodies Maria sung to her when the nightmares became too great. Prided for their strength, the viking men—and even their thralls from distant lands—show very little weakness, even when faced with overwhelming loss. Brittany hushes him and runs her hands through his shortly cropped hair, cupping his face between her hands when he swallows and pulls away.

Mikhail smiles faintly but she refuses to let his moment of weakness become one of shame; a gentle kiss to his forehead and a squeeze of his hand later leads him to regain his composure, wiping the moisture from under his eyes.

"Think of it as me starting a new journey, Mikhail. Will you see me off for it?"

"I would be a fool to refuse."

They make their way down to the docks where those chosen to journey around the lands shout at one another, trading weapons and rations and last minute advice. More ships than she's ever seen bob upon the water or remain grounded ashore—the longships are massive, their menacing prows decorated with snarling beasts that point the way into oblivion. How Eirik managed to find so many in such short notice she'll never know.

The select centaurs chosen to accompany the sailors mix anxiously around the water; it has been enraged for moons, bloated with discontent and discord, refusing to settle and allow safe passage. Their _galdr_ will clear the way for the ships to cut through the water that becomes still as glass at their call, but a horse on a ship such as these is impractical at best—they will steady themselves on the _knerrir_ and allow them to lead the charge, the larger space restoring a degree of their dwindling sanity. The others either remain behind or choose to cross by foot, the boom of their hooves on the earth quicker passage.

Everything seems normal, but Brittany attempts to commit every rock and tree to memory, one last picture of the place that used to be her home. Perhaps Kaupang will always be home in some ways, a place imprinted on her heart, but it is time to release herself from its hold. Sandalio, previously missing, licks at her fingers in an attempt to comfort her. She smiles and rubs his ears through the blooming nostalgia in the hollow of her throat. How strange, to wish to see her house one last time.

(She'd already been to Anvindr's grave to say goodbye. Not much was said, his body a husk that no longer housed the person, but the gesture stabilized her regardless.)

A jingling alerts her to a new presence, and she turns to find Harald, grave-faced and noble standing before her. She smiles nervously and tries not to touch the blank parchment she's left in her pouch as a good luck charm. (She wonders if Santana still wears her pendant.)

"I leave within a quarter sun to my own ships," he reveals brusquely, "and we will follow your path, as per Eirik's orders."

Brittany nods, scratching at the back of her neck. "I never got to thank you, for, ah... taking my side. I know how difficult it must be, allying with the one who killed your nephew."

"We took something from you, and you took something from us. There is no injustice to be had here... no matter how it may sting. I fight for my brother's people_—__my_ people—and to save them I give you my sword. I trust Eirik and Jarl Silverspear have no knowledge of this?"

"None. It pains me to keep things from Father, but Eirik has taken his allegiance from us."

"All will be revealed in due time. If you succeed, I'm sure your transgressions will be forgotten." He pauses, glancing around. "I should make myself scarce lest they become suspicious. I will see you in a moon, Bretagne Piersson."

In a move of solidarity they clasp forearms, the solid strength of him reassuring. He parts—undoubtedly to find Maria before he goes—and Brittany sighs in his wake.

"So many secrets."

"You've gotten better at keeping them."

At her glare, Mikhail amends his statement;

"Well, almost all. Your spirit-sensing is an open secret—they talk about it in the thrall's quarters. Perhaps they will leave you as you leave Nor Veg?"

"I certainly hope so," she mutters, "we have no place for extra weight on these ships."

Together they make their way to the end of the row where the boarding is in earnest, men jostling each other with the promise of an epic journey. She sees the gauntness on their faces and the winter's bite on their cheeks, turning them a raging red or waxy white—perhaps a visit to southern lands will boost morale. If Santana hasn't frozen it first.

They call for her and she sighs heavily, squeezing at his hands. She had saved him for last—Puck had already told her to come to Iberia once the madness was over and he would welcome them with open arms, Gynna tenderly wishing her luck as Reinn looked on, his helmet crooked on his head. Mikhail's bond is the hardest to break, the one that hangs heaviest on her heart.

"I will always be with you," he smiles, sensing her thoughts. "I will always be yours."

"Actually," she draws her knife from her belt, "you will be no one's. Close your eyes."

He does, ever trusting. As she engulfs him in another hug her knife rests upon his neck, the sharp blade sliding under the tight bind of his collar until it cleaves in half and flutters into her other hand. Mikhail opens his eyes in confusion when she places it in his grip.

"You were my thrall first, and you were my thrall last. Mikhail of Kaupang, servant of house Silverspear, I release you from your bindings. You are a free man."

His mouth gapes for a moment, speechless, before he lifts her by the waist into a crushing hug, spinning her around until they both become dizzy. She laughs as the world moves by in a blur, his body buzzing with excitement underneath her, his hair soft on her cheek. The town she grew up in whizzes past in a plethora of shapes and sizes, smoke from their fires sending signals of their farewell. When he finally sets her down, the grin he sports could be seen from Rome.

"I will _never_ forget this, my friend, _never_. We will meet again, I promise you. You will always have a home in me."

Brittany smiles fondly and kisses his cheek, reluctantly releasing his hands when she is once again called away. "I've talked to the servants—they should give you some things to get your feet underneath you. Be careful, Mikhail."

"I could say the same to you."

She takes up her position in the longship, running her hands over the weathered oars, Sandalio hopping in after her to curl the best he can by her feet. Mikhail crouches by the dock to see her off one final time.

"Goodbye, Bretagne. Fate will find us together in the future."

Brittany grins, tightening her grip.

"I'll keep you to that!"

The sails flare, the centaurs sing, and Kaupang fades into the distance for the very last time.

* * *

><p><strong>January 23<strong>**rd****, 913**

Brittany was right about one thing: the journey is miserable.

Even with the centaurs blowing wind into their sails and clearing passage, nothing stops the driving sleet and snow from coating their frozen bones, making the men hollow-eyed and irritable, their stiff muscles aching from the hours spent rowing. The world passes by in an endless blanket of white, and she hears one of the older men mutter that they have left the comfort of Taunmark and the northern lands, venturing now around the uppermost tip of West Francia. Their supplies run low and they will soon find place to dock and refill, giving the frozen soldiers a chance to stretch their cramped legs.

Two have nearly succumbed to the threat of hypothermia and must be carried when they finally run their ships ashore, others rolling over the rim with a moan of relief. Brittany slumps down on the sands of the shores, hidden under a thick layer of snow. Harald's great galleys anchor in the shallows without a port to dock and allow a few men to row to shore and greet their Nordic allies.

"Why is it so _cold_?" she hears one of the men complain, drawing his limbs into himself. His wool is soaked and does little to insulate his body.

"It's winter, boy," an older man snipes, smacking him over the back of his head. "Stop yer complainin'. We hear 'nough of that on the ships."

"Yeah, but... I heard the south is a lot warmer. This doesn't feel warmer."

"Aye, but it takes time to sail so far. The snows are still strong here... and with this blasted winter the way it is, half the world is frozen solid. The priestess made sure o' that."

Brittany perks up, eyes discreetly sliding over to them.

"Thas' why we're going to hunt her down, right?"

His voice is eager, hungry. It makes the winds seem colder.

"With any luck. Honestly, this whole trip's doomed from the start—we oughta wait until the snows thaw. Damn Eirik thinks he can push us all around, but he ain't wearin' the britches of his father for a long time yet." The older man's eyes shift back and forth, not noticing Brittany sprawled by her ship. "An' between you an' me... I think it cruel to bring the Piersson girl along. Somethin' already ain't right in her head, who knows what killin' her friend will bring?"

"What, like the voices she hears? I don't see how it could get much worse."

"You ever seen someone with a broken heart, lad? It can always get worse."

Brittany sighs, picking herself up, venturing out along the shoreline and away from the ships scattered about the hidden sand. Her legs cramp and ache from the days spent sitting down, but the pain is welcoming, a distracting thought. Even here she feels the darkness creep across the snows, sinking its corrupting talons into all that dare stand before it. Now more than ever the task at hand seems daunting in its girth.

Maria finds her like that, staring out at the grey sea. She takes her hand and together they stand upon the shore, watching the angry waves wash upon the Frankish rocks.

"Come now, Brittany," Maria teases, "surely the words of a few men will not extinguish the fire burning inside you?"

"It simply needs rest. It gets sad when it hears people talking in such ways, and there is only so much fuel in this cold."

Maria rubs at her arm in sympathy, and declines to comment how they are the majority now, following Eirik out of nothing more than blind hatred for the girl that has been killing their kinsmen.

(But there are some, those with black scars and limbs returned to their bodies, who whisper their mutiny in the night. If they knew, they would follow Brittany in the quest for redemption.)

"Don't let the muttering of men drag at your spirits, my love. They are blind to the path you take."

Brittany groans, rubbing at her eyes and biting down the _are they_ that hovers on her tongue. The lack of sleep must be playing tricks in her head—the voices have gotten louder in recent days and kept the vicious cycle in loop until she thinks she'll go insane, doubting her own decisions she was so sure of before.

"Come on," Maria urges gently, breaking her from her thoughts. "They're warming up some fish. A hot meal will do you good, followed by some sleep."

She nods, mood already rising at the prospect of a meal to fill her bottomless stomach. A bit of rest will solve her problems.

* * *

><p><strong>February 8<strong>**th****, 913**

Pine turns to leaf and Santana finds herself closer to her home kingdom than she's been in moons. The forests of East Francia are vast and sprawling, as of yet only brushed with darkness—the ground still flexes with its silent heartbeat, life hidden underneath the snows. Santana and her corruption halt the pulse of the land, lest its rhythm drive her mad.

The draugar have seemed to pick up her impatience and slog through the snows without halt, dragging Finngeirr when his legs give out. At times her body demands the rest that her mind does not wish to give, and her servants carry her, safe within their frozen arms as she sleeps and they journey ever onwards.

As she sleeps, she dreams of Brittany.

The darkness erodes her memory and takes from her the taste of her tongue and the scent of the skin, the length of her laugh and love. She clings onto these things when she fears she will lose her humanity entirely, pulled from her as surely as the heat in her veins leeches away. The one thing she could never forget is the depth in which she loves—loved?—and wonders every night if it still holds true.

How could it, after all she's done? She senses the unease of the people as she crosses their country and knows that Nor Veg has felt the brunt of her aura, still cowering under her swelling shadow—those are Brittany's people that she has killed, her kin. Love runs deep, perhaps, but it is not endless.

Her mind grants her rest and delivers her to happier times. The summers in the village and the forest, their first kiss in the midst of turmoil. It fills her dreaming mind with a nostalgia that is so thick it crushes, warping her thoughts, bringing the plague and the dying that so now occupies her reality. It mixes with Brittany until the two are indistinguishable, intermingled, _tainted_. She thought she could grant her exemption, but nobody is immune to the darkness—not even that which she had striven to protect. The Old One has the audacity to take her, her _one thing, _and—

Santana's eyes snap open feverishly as she wakes from a dream of her lover rising as a draugar, cold hands gripping at her arms, gaze white and glassy in death. She struggles awake, twisting in her servant's hold. Her tendrils panic alongside her and rip the draugar apart, exploding him in a flurry of flesh and bone; she drops to the snows sucking air, holding a hand to her head until the frenzy passes. Though the draugar are silent, Finngeirr's heart still pumps with the breath of the earth—the sound breaks her patience and her arm sweeps in a wide arc, splintering trees in her wake. A great halo of blackness spreads from her feet and turns the fallen wood a rotten black, festering and decaying into nothingness. There is a distant sound of screaming but nothing is heard save for the boom of forests dying and animals being turned to ash. Fire blooms and cracks through the dark snow as the sound of her anger drowns out the earth.

When all is quiet she hunches over, breathing heavily. They stand in the middle of a clearing, the broken and rotting bodies of trees scattered about the ground, turning black and soft. She was in a village, before—they must have been skirting around in her sleep, and now all that marks their burial ground are bones littered over the earth. The snow has melted away to reveal a ground that is dry and cracked, as dark as the liquid obsidian of her eyes, and even now it runs outwards, devouring all it touches. Life has died here, and Santana finds solace in the silence.

"Isn't that a shame," she mutters, rolling the charred skull of a child underneath her boot. Its flesh crackles, papery and thin.

She extinguishes the hands she hadn't even known were lit, turning to her servants. They stand as impassive as they've ever been, but Finngeirr cowers behind their solid bodies. The scent of fear wafts, both from him and the unfortunate villagers still alive but mangled in the blast, and it calms the last bit of indignant rage that had been resting inside the frozen cavity of her chest. Dreams have always been the Old One's domain... it may no longer whisper in her ear but it lays in her head regardless, an iron blanket.

Reality, however, is now entirely her own. It belongs to no other.

She turns towards the south, where the voice of the artifact grows ever stronger. Soon she'll have nothing to oppose her—not even her own treacherous memories.

* * *

><p><strong>February 13<strong>**th****, 913**

They've sailed further than Brittany has ever ventured, and she makes no qualms of staring as they glide along the northern coast of Iberia. A very light dusting of snow coats the coastline—Santana's reach has even extended here, pulling the temperatures down in places where ice never forms. Her home kingdom suffers under her influence as the cold—mild to Brittany, though the water is still freezing—knocks the people out of alignment.

Though she spends much of her time searching for the elusive _camel_, rowing becomes much more of a challenge. The centaurs have grown tired and their _galdr_ has weakened, returning the seas to their angry state as the world tilts on a broken axis. Waves roll over their shallow prow and slosh over her boots, soaking her through. She relies on the rowing to keep her warm, but her fingers are white and numb by the time midday hits.

At least they see the sun here, however cold it may seem. Light upon their skin for more than an hour does wonders to morale.

Sandalio whimpers miserably on the bench, his sodden fur weighing him down. He has lost weight with the rations and remains ever patient with her, cuddling up the best he can when she attempts to sleep. He licks at her eyes when the nightmares start, forcing her awake; both a blessing and a curse. Deep purple bruises run underneath her eyes as they slave away, more than halfway to their destination.

"I know, boy," she sighs, scratching at his scruff. "I'm cold too."

On break, she chews at rations gone stiff as a board and almost too salty to bear, grimacing as she forces each mouthful down. By the end of this trip, it'll be impossible to eat salt again without gagging.

A flash of metal catches her eye, glinting from the roiling depths of the sea. Brittany peers over the side in confusion, gaze sweeping the waves, fingers brushing the water. Surely it was just the reflection of the sun upon the water, a trick played by her sleep-starved mind... but again, brighter. She frowns and leans her upper body over the side.

She sees the face a moment too late, and grey hands come to snatch her collar and pull her under the waves.

The cold is paralyzing—her muscles lock and every piece of her is succumbed to the agony, her chest contracting in an uncontrollable gasp that rushes water into her lungs. Brittany chokes and flails, her head breaking the surface for a moment long enough to expel the worst before being swept back under. Hands circle her ankles and drag her further down into the depths, her clumsy hands grabbing at wrists that have come to grip dangerously close to her neck.

Though the water is dark and jostles her about, there's no mistaking the twisted face in the gloom—the spirit she saw in Kaupang drowns her, crooked mouth gaping into a silent scream. She startles, fist beating at his face, but the cold slows her reaction and renders her hits harmless.

_Did you think we would forget, Bretagne of Kaupang?_ His voice comes through a great echoing distance, watery and mocking, bounding in the hollows of her head that the Old One left behind. _Did you think we would forgive?_

Her fingers curl through his hair and yank until his head is forced away but his hands do not budge, one now going to circle around her throat. Brittany kicks at him but her feet go through his strange, shimmering form, a beacon of fetid light in the gloom. Her lungs scream but she can provide them no solace.

_Who are you?_

A noise comes that she believes to be a laugh, but it is the sound of bones grating against one another and swords being withdrawn from the bellies of the slain.

_Are we now but a ghost in your memory? Is that all we are doomed to become?_

Another set of hands grabbing at her waist, and she catches a glimpse of a boy her age with his innards spilling out from their cavity, a halo of red water surrounding him. His sightless black sockets stare and her fuzzy mind aches to place a name to the face that so haunts her dreams. _Spirits, _her mind says, _only spirits_, but the hands upon her body speak otherwise. Their conflicting thoughts are a cacophony and she feels herself entombed under the weight of the ocean, flailing for the surface that remains out of reach.

More and more come from the darkness until she is surrounded by hateful eyes that drill themselves into her mind, hissing and screaming accusations that knock and flounder her. Brittany manages to kick away and take a single gasp of air, seeing the bow of her longship turning with intricate precision towards her before the angry spirits once again drag her under.

The first one has lost all pretense of a game, and his jaw hangs so open she can stare into Niflheim itself with just the force of his hatred. _You have taken our noble death from us_, his voice snarls, _damned us to wander. We do not forget._

_ I..._ her mind slows, confused. The cold seeps into the marrow of her bones and renders her almost immobile—she knows not how long she's been under, only that the spirits roll her over and over, hands anchored around her throat. The world spins around with only the vague flash of the surface to orient her.

_Expect nothing from filthy berserkir._

She remembers this boy with his face unmarred by distortion, staring down the point of her blade as she knocked it away and carved him out from chest to pelvis. The rage had claimed her then, that doomed elixir pounding within her veins, giving into the bloodlust that so defied her nature. Maria said something about souls and Santana, suns ago, but Brittany's enfeebled mind loses the thought before it can bloom into a reality. These are the people she had slain, the darkness twisting their spirits into a mockery of a human being, and their hands tighten with her realization.

_You are damned with us,_ they whisper, _denied rest. We do not forgive._

Her lungs scream but her eyes fall shut, stinging. Perhaps they're right... it seems only fitting to suffer alongside them...

Just as she makes to stop fighting, strong hands anchor under her arms, warm and soft. The spirits scream their rage as she is pulled away from them, their fingers breaking like dry seaweed, booming in her skull until she scarcely notices when she breaks the surface.

She does, however, notice when someone starts to pound on her back.

Brittany gags, a rush of seawater spilling from her open mouth, lungs expelling that which she had sucked in. Her raw throat burns as she sucks in lungful after lungful, but she can't find the energy in herself to shift from her face-down position on the ship's floor. Her body trembles until it seems she seizes.

"C'mon now lassie," mutters one of the soldiers, "you've not come all this way just to die now. Not like this."

Hands strip her of her sodden garments and their forms enclose her shaking body—she leans back on him, burrowed under his tunic so that she presses against his linen undertunic, and two others huddle inwards to share their warmth. Her bones rattle and she bites her tongue with the chattering of her jaw but they carefully drape a blanket around her, wicking away any clinging moisture, pulling her freezing hair from her scalp. She doesn't know how long she sits there and trembles, only that the soldiers rotate a few times over, helping her feel human once again.

As she sits there alongside her allies, mumbling incoherently, her mind pulls flashes of her time underneath the water, replaying the faces of the slain and how their hatred has warped them. No matter how she tries, their voices remain in her head, never quieting, and she resigns herself to listening to them on loop until her shaking slowly stills.

She drifts in and out of consciousness, fuzzy glimpses of memories mixed with dreams until they all meld together—her stabbing the spirits on the battlefield, watching them morph and twist, their hands reaching inside her to pull out the soul she's convinced is already damaged.

_How do I make it go away?_ Brittany begs, but they are not interested in giving an answer.

She wakes some time later, sandwiched once again against the soldier that had fished her out of the water. She recognizes him as the older of the pair from their time in West Francia and manages a smile, beginning to feel close to normal again.

"Thank you," she whispers, voice hoarse. He looks down in surprise before smiling, lips stretching out under his beard.

"I've a boy yer age," he responds, patting her back. "I'd do anythin' ta keep him alive. Don't see I'd not do tha same for you." He lets his hand rest as a comforting weight for a moment.

"Bretagne..." he licks his lips. "Somethin' pulled ya under, didn't it?"

She smiles tiredly.

"My past mistakes have come to right my wrongs."

"How're ya goin' to stop 'em?"

"I don't know if I can."

_We do not forget._

* * *

><p><strong>February 17<strong>**th****, 913**

After days of toiling through the forests and then though the imposing mountain chain that stretches across the land, Santana finds herself so very close to her goal. In another life she would have paused at the stark beauty of the peaks, even larger than those in Nor Veg, but she hardly noticed as she forged onwards. The feet of the draugar have begun to shred and gape at the soles, their flesh snagging on roots and rocks they pass, but their complaints are silent as they dutifully follow their mistress out of the mountains and into the hills. Finngeirr spent so much time gaping at the mountains that he forgot about his fear.

If only for a moment.

Now, perched upon the hilltop that looks down into the sacred city that had so devoured her thoughts, Santana hums with an excitement that threatens to shake her blackened bones apart.

The Old One had shown this place to her before, in dreams: flashes of a mighty city with men and women in strange dresses, bustling streets filled to bursting with more people than she had ever seen. They spoke in a tongue similar to her own but entirely different, that melded together with the millions of voices the city kept. In the distance of her dreams stood magnificent buildings that were crafted with the care of an artisan and the money of an aristocrat.

A shamble of its former self, much of Rome sits in ruin; vegetation and crumbling buildings dot the landscape, entire sections deserted in favour of the residents that _do_ remain. Vineyards run long and winding, much of the farmland nestled in the nourishing crook of the Tiber that flows through the grasses. Long gone is the splendour of the old ways, though she can see their echoes in the great churches and monuments that remain even now as testament to its former glory.

"How far they have fallen. They look little different than the other kingdoms now."

Styrr steps up beside her, iceberg eyes curious. He, too, feels the pulse of the artifact within the city, crying out for his Mistress and her touch. She has grown in the days he has been away—her cheeks are sharper, her jaw cruel in its definition. Each claw tipped finger flexes with power that he feels running through the corrupted core of her being.

Santana licks her lips, uncaring of the bitterness that lingers on the backs of her teeth.

"What is it I seek, Styrr?"

"A crown, priestess. It was worn by the White Christ himself."

Slivers of a memory play out in her head—a man hung from a cross, speared through the ribs, face twisted in agony as beads of blood run down his forehead. The Old One saw him born, and so too did he see him die.

"The crown? Not the spear?"

"What use have you for a weapon? No, the crown is where true power lies."

Rome, despite being the seat of the Church, is rather openly run by two warring families, one of which has the papacy trapped under the heavy weight of its thumb. All that which happens comes to be because they wish it—it makes no difference to them if the Pope agrees.

"It seems the one currently seated has realized his own incompetence and itches to change it."

"What does he seek to do with the crown?"

"The same thing as you, I suspect."

Santana scowls. "The servant of a docile god has no right to such power."

"Which is why," Styrr smirks, "you will conveniently harvest it from him. He has done you the favour of unearthing it, but I believe that is enough."

Her shoulders roll, predatory. "Indeed. Perhaps I will reward him with a swift death."

(She doubts it.)

Santana's feet carry her towards the great walls, passing road and ruin in her wake. Though the weather is crisp it is not cold, and the ground is solid and rough underneath her soles. Her footsteps eat at the dirt until it is black and fetid.

She passes through the gate without any difficulty, ignoring those that watch her from their little crumbling houses as she walks. Those in this city live in the shadow of greatness, a past unlike any other buried underneath the soil that now blooms under their nurturing hands. It reminds her of Jaca, in some senses—but she is no longer the little priestess girl that begs upon the power of another to save her skin, pushing her soul aside to make room for a goddess that is not as forgiving as she claims. Perhaps something irreplaceable has been lost with the darkness, but its whispers were never full of false promises.

With a pause, Santana realizes she has carried herself into some sort of market place. Stalls with fruit and vegetables line the street, glittering jewelry and lean meats that have seen the sting of winter. There are more voices here than she has heard since before the war, and they become tangled in the cobwebbed space of her mind.

A man walks up to her, cautious. He resembles little of his decadent ancestors with his plain tunic and leggings, seax touted proudly on the curve of his hip. His hand circles it as he asks after her.

Though he undoubtedly speaks another language, the darkness mutters his words into her ears. She's attracted quite the attention, it seems... only now does she feel the eyes upon her, probing. She smirks.

"You have more to worry about than my name," she responds, the whispering shadow morphing her words to fit his ears. They make eye contact and he back pedals so quickly he trips over himself, landing in the dirt with a thump. He mutters something as he grips a small necklace with white knuckles.

"Your god has no power here." Her back ripples and the cacophony takes on a panicked tone as she hoists the man by the collar, her extra limbs wrapping around his neck until the bones snap with a quick, grating noise, and he jerks momentarily before going still.

_Come._

The draugar begin their own descent into the city as she lets herself indulge, tendrils whipping to cut limbs from the body, hearts and tongues removed, innards spilling out onto the cold dirt where they steam. People run only to be mauled by their neighbours, bodies still warm, risen up from temporary reprieve, and a dark euphoria thrills through her at the abject terror in their eyes as they scatter like stray dogs. She's been so painfully _good_, stopping at nothing to reach her goal, and now the thirst in her howls some sort of battle cry that anchors itself to the base of her skull. It yowls as she drives her tendril through the chest of a boy until he hovers impaled, suspended many feet above the ground, and sighs in content as his lifeless body is thrown away.

She takes a deep sucking breath and begins to move forward, towards the song of the crown that has increased to a shout. It rests here, in these same walls, and she follows the darkness calling with but an afterthought to the trail of bodies she leaves in her wake. Her hands flare into being, twin stars in the coming night, and those that seek to oppose her see nothing but the blinding gleam of death.

There seems to be nothing close to a guard in this city, but a somewhat organized force greets her as she stands before the great church that houses her prize. Their weapons are sharper, their clothes brighter and well made. Better than beggars, but nowhere near knights.

"Move," she drawls, "or your brains will decorate the walls of your beloved Golden Hall."

"You will not be allowed to enter this place of worship!" cries one, grip tightening on his sword. "We are to defend His Holiness with our lives."

_The Pope is here? Interesting..._

"Life is such a fickle thing," Santana muses, running her claws up one of her tendrils. "So strong one minute, and yet the next... snuffed out."

Her tentacles surge forward and impale two to the walls, expanding through their veins until they swell and drain them desiccated, their skin going pale and wrinkled. Another tries to run and she pulls the head from his body as one pulls a cork from the flask it stoppers. Her eyebrow raises at the single man that remains.

"Are you still so foolish that you would stand in my way?"

Though his sword shakes, the last one standing remains planted. "You would understand nothing of loyalty, demon."

Blue eyes flash through her mind; her face darkens.

"More than you would ever know."

She tears him in two, much as Stórhríð did to the knight that crippled Brittany's hand. His torso is condemned to crawling along the dirt, wheezing through lungs that trail behind—she pats his blood-spattered hair with a smirk and licks her lips, cold palms pressing upon the doors leading into the church. Soon, the screaming in her head will stop and all that will be left is blessed silence. She will become a god more powerful that Ataecina could ever wish to be.

The massive doors bang open as she strides inside, body buzzing with fervid anticipation. Her tendrils writhe, uncomfortable in such a holy place, but she ignores the subtle itching of her skin and forges onwards upon the marble floors that reflect her every footstep. Santana doesn't think she's ever seen something this grand—splendour at every corner, the massive building shaped like a cross. To her right leads to a cloister, and her left a little room with a golden chain, but her interest is squarely upon what lies before her. In what would be the head of the cross sits a white throne, the stained glass of Jesus and his followers staring down at the ruler. A figure in pure robes kneels, prostrate, his back bent so far his shoulders almost form the white wings of the wise.

On a pedestal lies the crown.

_Figures that the White Christ would put such power in a simplistic object._

The person—Anastasius, she has learned—scrambles to his feet. His chin fleshes out into something awkward and soft, a fruit left out too long in the sun that curdles and rots. He looks nothing like the leader she had hoped, but everything she had come to expect.

"Having a conversation? I'd hate to interrupt."

His beady eyes dart to her, unsure where to settle. The scraps of cloth have settled into her skin with time until they seem almost part of her now, an extension of her being. She's sure she looks every bit as unholy as she feels.

"W-who are you? Why are you here?"

"You have something of mine."

He traces her gaze to the crown and steps back to shield it with his pudgy body, sweat beading at his temples. "Holy relics are sacred! Your heathen hands will never touch this crown."

"Oh, no? Just like your heathen hands that seek to use it for your own desires?"

"I am the vicar of Christ! How dare you speak to me in such—"

Bored, Santana whips him across the ribs and watches his body skid and roll along the floor like a disoriented caterpillar. Anastasius lets out a wheezing groan as she languidly makes her way towards him, tilting his face with her foot.

"I dare to do whatever I please. Your savior can do nothing to stop me."

His heavy cross jangles as she kicks him away, rolling him onto his stomach. He struggles up in his robes and grips at his ribs until he looks at her in her entirety for the first time; past the tendrils and the matted hair, the claws and the blackness. It is her eyes that strike the ultimate fear within him, dark like the Devil's intent.

"Antichrist," he whispers softly, almost too tremulous for her to hear. It grows in volume as she turns away, back towards her prize until he screams it as his ribs ache in agony, spitting it over and over like a paradoxical prayer. His pleading reaches deaf ears—she has long grown numb to sympathy.

"I like that title," she muses, picking up the crown and running her fingers along the green vines. Thorns spike out at all angles and within it she feels the blood of the White Christ, his vigor and strength, a passage to other times. Power pulses through her arms until it threatens to burst her vessels entirely. "Maybe you'll finally understand what I'm capable of."

She lifts the crown to place it over her head—

—and it goes skittering across the floor, her own body flung to the ground as the heavy weight of the Pope lands itself on her midsection. Rage bubbles underneath her skin until she lashes out, blind in her fury, striking him across the face with her talons. It scores deep gouges in his cheek so that they touch the bone and the gleam of his teeth.

"I will not let you desecrate this place!" he shouts, cap flying off as she lifts herself to her feet. The air chills until her breath mists and her glare is all the demons come to earth.

"Do you not understand you have lost, fat man? Your god's power is _mine_."

"The Lord would never give his strength to monsters."

She smirks darkly, the crown once again delivered into her hands.

"Your lord answers to me now."

It descends upon her brow, and the world flexes for a moment before splintering apart.

Santana thought she knew power, but her knowledge was blinded, stunted by her own mortal body; the crown pulses until another heartbeat starts in the center of her head, coursing through her veins with each beat until the entirety of her flesh is consumed. It courses down her spine and through her limbs, saturating her with a strength she thought only the Old One could give—the White Christ's purity is devoured in the pit of her chest, twisted and malformed until it sits like a foul gemstone. It fuels the reaction until she feels herself ready to split apart in the center of her soul.

The crown groans and hardens, root turning to stone upon her brow. Black and glassy like obsidian, it serves as a grounding weight for the tremors that would otherwise rip her body asunder—Santana's howl echoes throughout the dying city of Rome as she throws her head back and allows this fusion to sprout a whirlwind of flame, bursting through the arching roof and shooting into the sky. Its vigor whips her hair into her eyes but she is blind to all; The White Christ is no longer pure, his sanctity tainted by her intrusion, and both his Heaven and Hell will tremble at her touch.

She gradually returns to the physical world. A sharp ringing in her ears throws all into fuzzy detail but she focuses on the scorch marks upon the marble until it fades, deep gulping breaths to tame the racing inside her. Her skin is frozen, yet her hands burn with bright flame, and now she sees the deep black lines running underneath her skin gone grey like the draugar after death. The transformation is not quite done yet, something missing that puts her on edge. She flexes her fingers anxiously.

_Bring me Finngeirr._

The wait isn't long—Styrr's footsteps echo inside her ears long before they reach her, and his head drops to his chest as soon as he sees the stone crown sitting upon her forehead.

"How does it feel, priestess? To be a god?"

Her eyes slide to the boy behind him, cowering.

"Let us find out."

Claws wrap in Finngeirr's filthy tunic and lift him so his toes barely touch the blackened floors—the familiar spark of fear flares in his face, but it no longer pleases her the way it used to. Gone is the joy of his suffering, but she is not so kind as to let him die after all that he has put her through—put Brittany through. Millions of machinations run through her mind but none are suitable, for they will all end in Valhalla.

She licks her lips and tastes his breath on her mouth, the stench of terror so great it almost drowns out the whisper-soft strokings of another presence across her mind. His soul warbles its woe, and her own pines to swallow the sound, take away its voice like that of a baby bird fallen from the nest. Her tendrils caress the center of his chest, dipping under his sternum until she almost surrounds the panicked beat of his heart.

_You will find no rest here, little boy._

It presses and presses and his flesh gives way—his cry is satisfying for but a fleeting second, and she is already craving more that he is unable to give. Santana opens her mouth so close to his and smiles, the stirring of the darkness in her throat.

"I have waited so long for this," she breathes, the shadow seeping from her mouth and into his. Her tendrils feel the stutter of his heart as it wraps itself around his lungs, eating and corrupting until he rots from the inside; Finngeirr screams and screams until he loses his voice, and within his pleading for mercy does Santana finally find her contentment, nestled alongside this new, unforgiving power.

The darkness leaks from his ears and eyes and nose until his skin turns bleach bone white; the tendrils press against his belly in grotesque forms as they devour his insides, creeping into his brain and riddling it with new pathways that will soon smother all that remain. His memories bleed into her; a father that died in his youth, a mother that only wanted his happiness, a legacy that sat too heavily on his inept shoulders. Years of training in the shadow of a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes until he started _chasing_ her shadow without the blacksmith's watchful eyes to follow him. The agony of being bound to a monster who no longer knows the grace of mercy.

She pulls them all from his head until it is blank and empty, a clean slate. The anchor still attached to his chest pulses as it draws out his soul, battered and beaten, escaping his body with a shuddering sigh.

She welcomes it greedily, soaking in its warmth. He is hers now.

Santana lets him down and his body sways for a moment, hollow insides almost crumpling before his new flesh holds him upright. She strokes her fingers down her new servant's cheeks and smiles as his empty gaze follows her.

"Who are you, Finngeirr?"

His pale flesh trembles, tendrils slithering underneath his skin. "Yours, mistress."

Crown sitting firmly on her brow, she sets her sights on the white throne that sits lonely at the end of the basilica, calling.

From under her feet bloom tendrils of ice that snake their way across the floor, creeping up the walls and along the ceiling. It devours the paintings of the saints and the statues of the angels, crystallizing across the glass windows to bathe the great halls in a dim blue light. Jesus and his forgiving eyes are hidden from sight as the ice finally curls around her seat, spreading from her fingertips until it, too, is encased within a layer so thick little could shatter it.

Santana smirks upon her frozen throne.

_Rome is __**mine**__._

* * *

><p><strong>February 25<strong>**th****, 913**

When they finally make landfall for the last time, Brittany feels as if she could kiss the ground.

She stumbles out of the longship and falls to her knees, fingers curling in the hard dirt. Ever since she had been pulled from the ship and almost drowned, the rocking of the sea had been an ominous shifting in her mind, setting her on edge. The wink of the spirits and their fish-belly flesh forms underneath the waves had her curling away, beating their whispers from her skull. The man who had saved her took her post by the edge and sat her beside him, his bulk strong and warm against her frozen skin. The others kept their distance, never quite meeting her eyes.

Word spreads. It always does.

Maria had offered her a place on the _knorr_ but she refused; they were not to beat her. Those demons were doomed to follow no matter where she went, and running was no longer an option.

Still, she can't deny how glad she is to have solid ground underneath her feet. Brittany grew up on a ship in the summers, the waves another home, but one can still grow to fear the thing that once brought them comfort. (It sounds too much like something she knows, and she pushes it away.)

The army is efficient, beginning to unload the _knerrir_ and set up camp as soon as possible. They will camp upon the slope of a gentle hill that watches Rome from a distance and plan their tactics, unknowing of the mutiny that stirs in the ranks. The centaur had arrived days earlier, their hooves trampling the earth with a great thunderous sound, and have set up home within the trees. Stórhríð is amongst them, and his bulk shines like a million crystals of ice caught fire.

The giant thumps towards her; away from the snow and ice of his home he seems uneasy and anxious and his brow furrows as he kneels down to her height. His frosty fingers brush strands of hair from her temple, tracing the thick black line that denotes where Santana had fused her ear back onto her skull. It has become a ritual for him, a reminder that not all is lost.

"Santana has found the crown," he rumbles, the darkness here suffocating. The girl's power pulses like a beacon felt in all nine worlds—Hel's skeletal face raises to Midgard, Odinn's ravens squawking in his ear. "She seeks the White Christ himself."

Brittany, too, had felt the moment Santana corrupted the crown. A great pain anchored itself into the center of her forehead until she felt she was about to split open and bleed out all the broken reasons Santana deserved a second chance, but it was gone as soon as it passed. She knew not what had happened until her dream that night was filled with angels spiralling to earth, their wings ripped from them by a girl with a golden crown.

"You are with me? To stop her?"

"Of course, Bretagne. But... there is something you should see."

For the first time in moons she is lifted upon his shoulders, her fingers weaving in his snowy hair. She longs for Toppurinn and his booming humour that would always grate on Santana's nerves. They have all lost so much.

Together they crest the hill where the men have begun to make camp, but continue onwards, his great strides carrying them through the trees who have all lost their leaves in the winter. The closer they come the stronger the sense of dread until it is almost overwhelming and she must resist the urge to turn back and scatter to the winds. Eventually they reach another hill, the last bastion before arriving at Santana's new kingdom.

Brittany blinks, the cold air stinging her eyes.

"Oh, gods..."

The ground beneath Stórhríð bends under his weight, foul and rotten. Great swaths of land have gone black and fetid until it stinks of bitterness and decay, fire spurting from the roofs of buildings from inside the city walls. Even from the distance she can see the scattered bodies of the dead torn asunder, or those that have fallen and reanimated to serve their new master. Their rattling breath comes to her on the winds and it reeks of death stretched on too long. It spreads from the city in a halo, eating at the forests, felling trees and killing animals in their sleep until nothing is safe from its dying touch.

She watches a child run down by a pack of draugar until all that is left of him is red bones. Sam once told her of Hell, the dead and the burning and the suffering, and wonders if her lover has ripped a hole in the ground to bring it into Midgard.

_This is your doing._

Brittany slides from Stórhríð's shoulders, leaning against his thigh to steady herself. He places one massive hand across her back to keep her upright, but she wobbles regardless. The spirit that follows appears from the corner of her eye but she dares not look to him.

_We do not forgive._

And can she? After all that Santana has done, Brittany fears her battered heart lacks the strength to extend salvation who seems so out of reach. Perhaps Eirik is right... damned, both of them.

But as she looks to Stórhríð, who finds the will to breathe while his brother does not, the fire that burns so low flickers once again. Who is she, if not tenacious? Her regrets whisper angry doubts into her ears, and maybe they hold truth, but she will not leave the dead to linger in a place that brings them such sorrow. She owes them that much.

"I have to fix this," Brittany whispers, listening to the howl of the lost. Her eyes fix onto the distant basilica where her soul can sense the quiet beat of Santana's heart, drowned amongst the noise.

_There is no repairing what is done._

"No one knows the future. I have to try."

_You cannot save her. You will fall._

She flexes her hands in the squishy dirt, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. After all that she's seen, she's inclined to believe them. Santana has settled into her madness and it consumes her until nothing is more important than the kill, but... some part of her still hopes for the girl she fell in love with. All monsters were once men.

"Then I will join you. My damnation is welcome if I cannot have her once again."

The spirits still whisper and the men still prepare, sharpening their blades in anticipation for the slaughter, but her choice is clear.

This time, she is ready to die.


	30. Chapter 30

**A/N:** One more chapter to go, guys. It's been two years to the day since this story's been posted - can you believe it?

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 30<strong>

**I can't escape this now**

**unless you show me how**

**March 1****st****, 913**

The shores of Rome have been transformed into a sprawling military camp, constantly bustling with life and noise, the scent of rations and sweat and anticipation crawling thick in the air. Unshaven men clash against each other with swords sharpened to kill, the thump of metal against mail, practising swipes and stabs and surrenders. Normal tactics are useless against the draugar, and Brittany finds herself busy in preparing the men to fight the undying enemy.

"You want to go for the face," she explains, grip firm on her axe. "They don't feel pain, and slicing them through the belly only annoys them."

"What if you cut off their legs?" asks one, and Brittany nods, pressing her weapon against her volunteer's thigh.

"A lot less dangerous, surely, but they can still crawl to you. Ragnar here almost got his ankle bitten off like that."

The old warrior who had comforted her on the ship nods his agreement. "Foul little things, the lot o' 'em. Never know when yer next."

A younger boy studies her form curiously, shifting his grip on his own axe. "Wouldn't it be best to use a spear? Keep them away?"

"If it gets grabbed, you're finished. My first draugar almost killed me that way."

She so misses that weapon—her axe is beautiful and deadly, but the finesse she had with the spear is not something easily replaced.

"How did you escape?"

Brittany sucks her lower lip into her mouth. "Santana, uh... she lit him on fire. They don't like that."

An awkward silence descends upon the group, and Brittany feels ever so aware of the trees that have begun to crumble away surrounding them. It won't be long until the rot claims their entire camp—the ground that was once sticky and foul has gone dry, sucked of all life. Once the corruption is complete, it leaves nothing but cracked, desiccated earth in its wake.

"Not all of us use the spear," Ragnar interrupts, "so it looks like you'll have to make do, laddie. I don't suppose you got a bushel o' fire in that big mouth o' yours?"

He flushes furiously and Brittany smiles her thanks, twirling her axe with new purpose.

"The draugar are soft like children... one blow should suffice." She mimes an arc to Ragnar's neck, raking across his mail coif in a way that would otherwise sever his head from his neck. "But if you _were _to have a spear..."

One is thrown to her and she makes quick work, slamming the butt into the joint of his hip to collapse it, sending him staggering back. Brittany advances in a way that speaks of a lifetime of muscle memory, stabbing at him a few times before ducking under his false swipe, bringing the weapon up so the tip pushes into the fleshy expanse underneath his chin. It reminds her of Samuel, but it doesn't hurt the way it used to. His knowledge will be used to save the lives of others.

"A quick thrust through the jaw is enough."

She smirks at their open-mouthed expressions and hands the spear back to the boy who nods furiously in an attempt to commit it all to memory. Her shoulders roll, sore. "Go get some food. I hear rumours of an advance being planned."

Ragnar chuckles as they all scatter, eager for some rest. He's taken to keeping her company when Maria has other things to do, offering advice and a distraction when the voices mutter too loudly. Not that there's much time to think at all in recent days.

"Turned into quite tha leader, have ya?"

Brittany scoffs, returning her axe to her belt. "Hardly. Half of them think me mad."

"Half the best rulers are mad. Have ya ever talked ta King Haraldr alone?"

Together they duck into the ration tent, chewing upon what little they've managed to scrounge. Though they are no longer resigned to salted and picked meats like when sailing, it is all they've come across. The Sami find the odd animal in the forests, but most have been chased away by the darkness that comes to swallow the sun.

Brittany swallows a tough hunk of elk, grimacing as the grizzle becomes caught between her teeth. "They have nowhere else to turn, is all. Most of them thought draugar were only legends of old until recently."

"Didn't you?"

She shrugs, sipping at her ale.

"Maybe. But I've come to realize that legends exist in Nor Veg... both good and bad."

"Yer quite a legend yerself, Valkyrja of the North."

Brittany blushes, her cheeks staining a dusty red.

"Please, I've not earned such a title."

"And why is tha'? I'm sure yer mother has, why not her daughter?"

She pauses, cup halfway to her mouth.

"You knew my mother?"

"Svala? Quite well. Beautiful spirit, tha' one. Always just but never afraid o' a fight... just like you, I'd say. It was a sad day in Midgard when the valkyrja took her." He pats her knee. "Many o' us old timers see her in you, my friend. She was dear to us."

Brittany smiles sadly. "Father refuses to talk of her. Only Afi did—said no good would come to forget her. They're together now, in Valhalla."

"Aye, I'm sure th' Hammer o' the North took 'is rightful place next to Odinn. Mighty man, tha' one. Never seen such strength."

"You remind me of him, you know."

Ragnar blushes red from the roots of his beard all the way to his scalp, sputtering for a moment on his drink. "Me? Like Yngvarr Ketilsson? Ya flatter this old axe!"

"Says the one who calls me _Valkyrja of the North_."

He grumbles and slurps on the ale he's spilled, wiping at his beard. The two of them watch as Eirik emerges from his tent with his advisors at his side—they mutter with their heads down, whispering over tactics and casualties. Word has it that five thousand draugar reside within Rome's walls, lurking in the nooks and crannies of the sprawling urban labyrinth.

"Damned boy-king thinks too little of tha' priestess."

Brittany turns her eyes back to Ragnar who chews angrily on the rest of his food. "He relies too much on 'is sword. Metal doesn't save ya when yer enemy can melt it into a puddle."

"You don't agree with him?"

"Aye, bloody right I don't agree! She might be tha enemy now, but at one point she was an ally." Ragnar tugs at his sleeve to roll it up, revealing a jagged black line that runs in a lopsided circle across his right bicep. "One o' Harald's men lopped it right from my shoulder, 'e did! Almost bled out 'fore she got ta' me. Sealed it right back on with no problems. I owe 'er a debt hard to repay."

Brittany touches her ear faintly, startling when his heavy hand falls on her knee.

"A few o' us want to fight with ya. There are a lot o' us who owe 'er our limbs... if you'd have us, a'course."

She smiles and covers his massive hand with her own, squeezing tight. "Of course. Any soldiers willing to help are welcome, but... are you sure? Eirik won't be pleased."

"Piss on Eirik! He wants to march 'is people to their death 'cause of pig-headed impatience."

Someone clears their throat and Ragnar tries to pull his hand from her knee discreetly; Brittany smirks around her cup and turns to the figure, only for it to drop as Harald comes into her view. She hastily stands up, nearly knocking over the rest of her food.

He waves her down, sitting next to her with a loud rattling of mail. A bowl is delivered into his hand quickly after. Harald casts a wary eye to the older man sitting opposite, but Brittany grins with a newfound elation. "I trust him. He can stay."

The leader nods absently, spooning a mouthful of thin broth into his mouth before sighing.

"We march at dawn."

The grin falls as quickly as it had appeared.

"_Tomorrow_? The men haven't recovered from the trip yet!"

"Scouts report the corruption spreading. If we wait much longer, draugar will come from places outside of Rome and add to our problems."

"But what about his original plan?"

"Scrapped, as far as we know. Seems like we storm the southern gates and pray for the best."

"Sounds like a shit plan ta me."

"I'm well aware, Ragnar Shattershield. He refuses to listen to reason."

"And my father?"

"Sees that this is headed straight for ruin, but he lost standing when he agreed to shelter me in Kaupang."

Harald taps his fingers against his ale tankard, brows drawn. He looks older than Brittany had ever thought he was, the beginning of grey fading in from his temples and the edges of his beard, though his hair still shines a slick blond.

_He looks rather tired when not making threats for my life, _she muses.

"Perhaps it is for the best, anyhow. I received word from my brother—none too pleased at my treachery. I tell him for it is for the good of the Pope, but he refuses to believe me." Harald blows air through his teeth in exasperation. "Catholics. I will never understand them."

"Have you not accepted their religion?"

"I changed faith because that was what was needed of me, but I will never be loyal to God. All this praying and sinning... it seems pointless when you stare down the point of a blade. It did William no good in the end, poor boy."

"Perhaps you should come back to Nor Veg?" Brittany asks tentatively. "If it all falls into place, I'm sure my father will grant you a position."

He considers it, rolling the taste of northern air in his mouth.

"In another life, perhaps. I do not run from my problems."

Harald rises abruptly, face neutral.

"I must prepare my men. We will speak tomorrow... the centaurs expect you in a strange little hollow a ways east of here."

"Isn't there more to speak about?"

"Nothing that won't be said when we march."

A jolt of nervousness shoots through her at the prospect of seeing Santana again. Harald nods and turns on his heel, attending to whatever business it is rebel leaders do. Brittany groans and lays her head in her hands as Ragnar pats her shoulder.

"This is all happening too fast," she moans, beating her forehead.

"And yet it was a long time comin'."

* * *

><p><strong>March 2<strong>**nd****, 913**

The air is crisp, and it burns as it expands Brittany's lungs.

A great trampling of feet as the men silently approach the towering walls of Rome, faces dull and grim. Sleep has not been a kind mistress, nor have their imaginations; monsters howl in the dead of night, so close and yet so far, and their blades feel heavy and useless in their scabbards. All remember the last time the undead clashed with the living.

Brittany remembers the day she died. It held the same taste to the air.

A thousand marching men—two thousand? She's forgotten, the number lost under the sound of their footsteps—stand before the gates of the White Christ's Hell, peering into the gloom. Everything has turned black and fetid, great oozing tendrils bursting from the ground to wrap around all in sight. Trees are strangled, homes turned to husks. The path has been lost and all that remains is a barren, splintering wasteland. Her whole being crawls with a wrongness that is difficult to ignore.

The rulers lead their men silently with naught but the distant horizon to cast shadow across their faces. Dawn arrives, its light tainted and warped by the darkness, and sheds a sickly glow upon the city; a dream about to turn into a nightmare. Brittany snakes her hand into Betar's for a moment, squeezing tight and swift, a promise and an apology.

Eirik turns to his men, a great frenzy already building in his eyes. "It is time we stop living in fear!" he shouts, shoulders broad and strong. "It is time we fight back against an evil that has claimed our home! The priestess is _here_, within these walls, and she underestimates the power of blade and bravery!"

A few lingering draugar stagger towards the disturbance, quickly put down. Eirik nods to himself as their brains splatter out into the wilted grass, almost trance-like.

"The enemy is weak and mindless... we must stay strong. My people, today, we will take revenge! Foul magic has no place with us!"

A cheer goes up amongst the majority—Brittany's searching eyes spot a few that mutter between themselves, brows furrowed, casting their gaze to the great basilica encased in ice. Only a mile away, such a short distance has never seemed so impossible. Ragnar catches her stare and nods, a group of twenty men by his side.

(All the while the dead whisper _forgive and forget_ into her ears.)

"Remember, men," Eirik grins, savage, "the bitch is mine. Giant!"

Stórhríð breaks through the ranks like a landing hurricane, feet making great gouges in the earth. Draugar are not the smartest creatures, mindless without guidance, and they will gravitate to the sound of his cry until there is little left in their thoughts. He disappears into the narrower city streets, bellowing a roar that sounded much like Toppurinn before he died. The sound haunts, floating across the rooftops.

The town is a plethora of clashing noises as the human soldiers take up the battle-horn until even the dead will hear it, raising them from their slumber. So many winding roads give shadows and streets for the undead to hide, waiting patiently for a hapless soldier to wander to his death—drawing them in to one spot will give a more even ground. Unfortunately, it leaves them little room to advance, pinned as they are. A fight to the death—or undeath—seems easy enough... provided Santana doesn't gift her servants with the sudden ability to reason. Brittany wouldn't put it above her.

Buildings crumble to dust as Stórhríð's mighty fist breaks through the flaking structure, his feet like slabs of stone breaking spines and skulls as he thrashes. His breath, cold like the bottom of the frozen sea, freezes the draugar solid until nary move but their maggot-white eyes. He tramples back towards them, covered in slime and the stench of rot, beard tinted black—a great horde follows him with their distinctive moan of discontent.

The outside ranks ready themselves with gleaming weapons at the forefront; their breath rushes from their lungs in trembling billows of steam, close enough to see the bones that glint in the caverns of their enemy's chest. A few of the younger men take a shuffling step back, but Ragnar—his mouth a grim line—mutters _be steady_ and keeps them where they belong. Brittany tightens her grip until it threatens to crush.

Dawn breaks truly now and the edge of her axe flashes as it comes down, cementing itself into its first victim of the morn. The draugr shudders before collapsing like a limp puppet, and others stumble across his body as he dies.

The space previously occupied by tense silence erupts into a clash of metal against bone, the draugar howling their mindless anger as they find the first fingers to feast upon. Those too poor to buy mail find themselves yanking arms and legs back from hungry mouths, some losing digits or even entire limbs to the jagged knives concealed behind rotting lips. Their bulk is an oppressive force, pressing ever inwards, crushing the men that fight—Brittany watches as the first kill is made, a man falling under the biting jaws of several, a bright spray of blood adorning their faces. His allies cleave them apart, but his last breath has already escaped his lungs.

It seems to be endless—one falls only to be replaced by another, the same eternal endurance that will last until Ragnarok begins. Brittany grunts as a soldier jostles her into the waiting arms of a draugr, narrowly escaping its giant's grip and the promise of death that it brings. She sinks her axe into its spine, grimacing as it flops forward bonelessly before crumpling to the ground.

A hand grasps her ankle as she goes to turn away; the man whose throat had been ripped out gapes back at her, jaw hanging loose and bloody. She yelps, instinct sending her booted foot into his face. One kick not enough, nor two, but with the third her heel breaks through the skull and embeds itself into his brain, shifting his nose aside, matter splattering out over the leather. Once withdrawn, she glances around suspiciously. Had Santana come out to entertain herself after all?

But no dark tendrils make themselves known, no claw-tipped fingers or malicious smirk. Another culprit comes to raise the dead, turning their own allies against them.

Figures in the distance raise their pale, wrinkled hands to the sky, a gnarled wooden stick doubling as a crude staff. The draugar have been gifted with magic as per the touch of their mistress, and their mindless words return movement to bodies that have begun to cool and fade from the earth. Another solider rises from his slumber, and another after that—the mail on their bodies makes cutting a challenge, the helmet on their heads an obstacle.

Unable to force her way through the writhing pack of corpses, Brittany shouts for Stórhríð. The savage ways of his nature have prevailed over the calm intelligence of his nurture, and his roar is the sound of groaning mountains as he sweeps the dead from his path.

(Harald's men took his brother away, but his promise for vengeance goes unanswered as he fights beside them, allied in blood. It makes his punches heavier, his breath crueler. He is winter reborn from the desolate despair of this injustice.)

"Do something!" Brittany yells, sidestepping a newly risen corpse. They lose ground the more men are returned within their ranks, turning on their former comrades with the void stare death always brings. Stórhríð glances, stomping on a few dead, before reaching back and yanking a slab of stone from a nearby building. The roof collapses as he rears back, frost carapace cracking—the great boulder sails through the air and shatters the skulls of two invokers. He continues chucking debris at the unmoving foes, sending them scattering, but one remains to weave words of war as he runs out of stones to throw. His hand grasps at nothing, an irritated grunt coming from his lips as he stamps out another risen soldier. Burning blue eyes lock onto hers.

His hand wraps around her waist and hefts her high into the air; her world spins and tilts as she hovers suspended, glaring down at the dark ground below. She grunts as he rears back, beating on the hard joints of his knuckles. "Not me! I didn't mean throw—"

The rest of her sentence cuts off on a screech as he flings her over the battlefield in a great effortless arc. Dead and living alike rush past in a blur of motion; Brittany revels in the feeling of flying for but a fleeting moment before the ground starts approaching rather than leaving. Axe gripped tight in her hand she closes her eyes, bracing herself for the impact and the sound of her own neck snapping loud in her ears.

A bolt of blue a moment before collision—both her and the draugar go sprawling out into the dirt, the impact of shoulder-to-ribs so strong that she feels them buckle as she descends, landing on her enemy's torso before bouncing off and away. Brittany groans, scrabbling up from the ground as a pale hand reaches for her braid. She jerks back and chops it straight from the source, sidestepping the jagged bone that swipes at her face. The summoner mumbles its discontent but she is soon to cleave it away.

Brittany staggers to her feet, wincing at the twinge in her shoulder. Another energy hums through her, grounding and serene, twirling around her fingers and infusing itself into her blood. Ataecina's touch brushes tenderly against her cheekbone and wraps around the strength of her bicep. The Mother waits like a hovering halo to lend aid.

Now that her own have stopped rising she allows herself a moment to look around, free from the thick of the fight. Gleaming chain catches her eye and she spies Eirik break from the throng with fifty of his best men, howling and baying, eyes bright and frenzied as they set their sights on the great black basilica that towers to the northeast. Perhaps the lingering dead stand in their way, but he will remove them from Midgard if it means chance at the priestess and her human heart that hums still.

Brittany swallows, looking desperately for an ally. Stórhríð has submerged himself in the battle once again and will not heed her call—the others are too busy fighting for their lives. She runs her hand over her hair before spying a familiar face in the crowd of strangers.

"Harald!" she yells, waving her arms to catch his attention. "Harald, Eirik is leaving! We need to go!"

The leader glances to the rapidly closing hole Eirik's forces have made, barking a few orders at those behind him. She runs to aid, and soon they are chopping their way from the thick of battle with a newfound determination; Ragnar laughs long and loud as they break free, mail clinking around their shoulders. She makes to greet them but is stopped by a firm hand around her wrist.

Her axe raises but Betar stops her before it comes down, face grim.

"Where are you going?"

She is her own woman now, honour bound by love over duty.

"I need to do this."

"Bretagne, Eirik said—"

"What Eirik wants is revenge. He doesn't understand, not like I do. She needs me."

"Your _people_ need you."

"Not like her."

She wrenches her wrist from his grasp and flees, mail hitting heavily against her knees. Ragnar claps her on the shoulder as she joins them, face ruddy and drenched in sweat. "Good ta' see ya, lassie."

Brittany smiles faintly, looking back at her father's figure.

"You too. All of you."

* * *

><p>The silence is almost eerie—they had chosen to take the smaller roads to avoid attention, and the clinking of their armor is like thunder booming in the quiet. A band of unlikely heroes, twenty men with weapons gripped tight in their trembling hands, go to death's doorstep in hopes of returning with a prize far greater than themselves.<p>

"What're ya goin' ta do once ya see 'er?"

Brittany shrugs, fingering the patch of Santana's wolfskin robe sewn into her clothing. "Anything I have to."

"Surely ya can try'n talk to 'er?"

"I think she's past that, Ragnar. We all are."

The basilica looms in the distance like a great citadel; in its prime it was called the Golden Church for its splendour, but years of decay and sackings has made the world all but forget its glory. Despite its state of degeneration it is far greater than Kaupang ever was—though it still stinks in a way that all towns do, the sprawling vegetation seems to take away from the stench. At least, it would, save for the rotting corpses sprawled about the streets.

She steps over one that feebly reaches for her as she passes, latching onto her ankle. Twenty men simultaneously level their weapons as she jerks away. The dull heave of its chest highlights the vicious black lines across the back where Santana's tendrils have cleaved flesh from the bone, his cheek split open to the weeping quick. Though barely open, his eyes are unusually clear.

Harald crouches down and fishes out a heavy gold cross slung around its neck, clenching it in his palm.

"Anastasius," he mutters in disbelief, leaning to whisper something into the man's ear. Brittany watches as the man grips at Harald's wrists, his silky language evading her ears. Harald's men have taken the helmets from their head and place them over their hearts as their leader converses with the dying man. Ataecina's pity causes Brittany to lay her hand over his forehead, his eyes flashing blue for a moment before the Mother takes away his suffering. Harald lays him down with a grudging, hesitant respect.

"Did he have anything to say?"

"Only that the crown is gone. He seems certain hope is lost."

Ragnar snorts, eyeing his leaking wounds. "I don't blame 'im."

"He is with his God now... that is what he wanted."

(Brittany thinks of Ataecina's soothing touch whisking him away, and wonders.)

Daylight has broken in its entirety, and though they march to the basilica with all the speed they can muster, it never seems to get any closer. There is always a detour around a ruined building or pack of draugar, another obstacle that stops them from reaching their goal. The clash of metal in the distance makes it known that the battle still rages on.

As Brittany rubs at her cold nose, Harald sidles up to her.

"The Pope said to be wary of the dark one before he died. Who do you think that is?"

"The answer seems obvious to me."

"No," Harald responds dryly, "Santana is now the Antichrist. Much more direct a title."

"I'd think it tha ramblings o' a dyin' man," Ragnar interrupts, walking by Brittany's other side. "Nothing ta pay tha' much attention to."

Harald eyes him in irritation and opens his mouth to respond, only to be cut off by Brittany's arm forcibly laying itself across his chest to halt their movement. Their little road has emptied out into a main street, and the wide passage offers no shelter from the group of armed men that suddenly cross their path with no time to hide and retreat.

Both groups come to a halt, awkwardly eyeing each other for precious seconds in the race to the throne. A grumbling from the enemy—several soldiers are shoved out the way as a head of red hair comes into view.

"Why have we stopped? Is there a—" Eirik pauses as he takes in Harald and his group, who begin to cluster together in a defensive circle. A disbelieving grin splits his lips. "Well... isn't this a surprise."

"Eirik," Harald responds gruffly, grip firm on his sword. Brittany swallows and holds her axe in such a way that she can see the blue halo shimmer reassuringly over her white knuckles.

"King Eirik to you, traitor lord."

"You have to earn that title first."

For a moment she thinks he'll lunge and bury his axe into Harald's skull in a way he's been aching to since he first set eyes on him, but it simply turns his vicious grin into a grimace. Their prize looms overhead in the tense silence.

"I knew you weren't to be trusted. Silverspear was a fool for thinking otherwise."

"I happen to think he made a wise decision."

Eirik's angry eyes flick to Brittany, a mirth she's only known once before playing itself in the wrinkles around his eyes—what she saw underneath the deeps, the haunted spirits rejoicing in the breath leaving her body to never return.

"And what's this? His own blood, the fabled _Valkyrja of the North_, betraying her house and honour for a filthy-skinned bitch who left her to rot alone? Are you trying to shame him into his grave?"

"Lying in the ground for the rest of time seems a small price to pay if it means we're rid of you."

All presence of amusement falls from Eirik's features, and the tension in his muscles coil and release like a bear woken from slumber.

"Once this battle is over, I will mount your head on a spear to bring to your little friend. She can look into your eyes as she dies."

Brittany's nose crinkles in disgust, but Harald's lips curl into a smirk.

"Let us not get ahead of ourselves... I doubt you can tell anything from your own ass."

Eirik lets out an infuriated bellow and they surge forward at once—the space echoes with the clash of metal; both sides roar and plunge themselves into the fray. They outnumber Harald two to one, but all involved fight with the fervour of a man with everything to lose. Brittany narrowly avoids a spear to the belly as her axe hooks it away, delivering a bruising kick to her opponent's knee in a way that has him staggering back and quickly sliced open by an ally's blade. Ragnar grins at her from across the way, sword red with blood.

She can distantly hear the two leaders taunting each other as they collide, fire and ice and all the elements in between. Ataecina sharpens her focus to the breadth of the beyond in a breathtaking balance; the drums of battle, silenced by the Old One, begin to beat in her head once again.

Harald's sword is knocked aside and he raises his shield to block Eirik's heavy handed blow, grunting as the force reverberates down his arm, his own retaliation skating off Eirik's thick chain armour. They circle, snarling.

"Maybe I'll let the priestess kill you first, old man." Eirik jumps from a swing, but Harald is quick to parry his return, twisting his arm out the way with nary a thought.

"You're a fool for even wanting to get close," Harald huffs, clenching his shield in his sweaty palm. "A god without compassion is not one crossed."

A laugh is spit in his face, followed by a flurry of attacks that has the older leader scrambling to dodge. "That foreign whore is no god. Are you scared of a little girl?"

Harald casts his eyes to Brittany, her face grim as she buries her axe so deep into a man's neck she struggles to retrieve it. He has noticed the blue presence that lingers about her akin to a shroud, the very same that so follows Maria and her thoughts. One god is with them—will that be enough?

The draugar gravitate to the source of the frenzy, their allegiance-less teeth sinking themselves into whatever they may find. With enough manoeuvring perhaps some of his men can be saved, fracturing apart to save their own skins, bur Eirik will still march onwards and attempt to carry out his ill-fated crusade. He will fall, as all mortals must, and the land will be forever taken into shadow.

But Harald is no coward, and neither are the men that follow him into the heart of darkness. They have all marched inside with death a close friend; even Bretagne, who has felt its embrace before and is willing to do so again if it means salvation for the rest of them. In swearing to save Santana they have also sworn to save Bretagne, and it with that promise in mind that Harald kicks Eirik away into a stumble.

"Bretagne!" he calls to catch her attention, jamming his shield between him and the enraged leader. "Go find Santana! We will hold them as long as we can!"

Her eyes dart between them hesitantly, her hair dipped in crimson. Harald grunts as he ducks a vicious sideswipe, catching the next swing on the flat of his blade.

"Go finish this, lassie!" Ragnar crows from the opposite end of the fight.

The draugar come in number now, if she leaves... Harald looks her in the eye, knowing.

"_Run!_"

She spins in the dust and scrambles away, sprinting with all the power left in her limbs towards the basilica. Her throat burns as she catapults through the streets, weaving through draugar who stumble towards the two groups, leaving the sound of their shouts behind. To place so much faith in her is a burden difficult to bear, but she's determined to try.

All too soon she feels herself slowing, her mail a weight that deadens her limbs. Brittany ducks behind a ruined wall and sinks down on her haunches to rest a moment, tilting her head back. The basilica is now an ominous mountain on the near horizon, and Santana's poisoned heartbeat booms so loud in her mind it threatens to overwhelm her completely. She holds her breath as a draugr staggers by unnoticed.

Harald's men are unlikely to survive Eirik's attack—and even if they do, the draugar will drive them from the city. So many lost and never to return for a plan she can't even put into words.

_Be strong, my child,_ comes a whisper. _Do not let your doubts consume you. _

Brittany sighs, rising on tired legs. "What now?"

_Onwards. It is almost time._

With Harald's sacrifice heavy in her heart she slinks onwards, skating around buildings and worming through ruins. The draugar are thick here, unaffected by the battles raging behind her, and Brittany's axe is not enough to cleave them alone. Several times she finds herself pressed into a dark, dank corner, eyes closed and prayers whispered as a group passes by with the dragging shuffle of limbs. Rotten vines brush her skin and she begs them to keep her secret.

It is strange, being the only living being in a space. Usually her world is filled with the heartbeats of a thousand tiny animals hidden just out of sight, a reassuring presence though they might be invisible to her eyes. It makes her feel so terribly alone, trapped in a place without allies or escape.

A single group of draugar loiter in the main road to the basilica, and to either side of her is nothing but grassland where the vineyards used to grow with no cover in sight. Brittany groans and presses herself against the last building before the stretch of nothingness. Forcing her way through them is too risky, but skirting around will take too much time. Her fingers dance across a piece of loose stone—perhaps she can draw them away...

All twelve undead heads turn to the clattering noise some ways down the road, blank gaze scanning as they stumble their way towards the disturbance. Brittany shuffles along the building wall carefully, praying to all the gods she's had passing conversations with, before diving into a ditch that hides her from sight. The draugar continue to stagger in the wrong direction as she spits rotten weeds from her mouth, worming through the dark sludge until she's sure they're gone.

With a relieved sigh she peeks out of the ditch, scanning. The road is silent now, abandoned with nary a soul in sight. She grins and clambers out, mail clinking, brushing herself off as she makes for the basilica whose features have become distinct.

"You honestly didn't believe it to be that simple, did you?"

She flinches at the familiar drawl that comes from behind. Brittany turns slowly, disappointed but not at all surprised when she meets Styrr's expectant gaze.

"You must be the dark one," she muses, drawing her weapon. His eyebrows go up in intrigue.

"That title is new to me, but I don't oppose it."

"Of course you don't."

They stand off for a moment, shadows bending to Styrr's feet.

"I don't suppose I can deter you from going to her, can I?"

"Not a chance."

"Pity. I doubt Santana will be pleased once she finds out I killed you."

She laughs sharply. "What makes you think I'll be the one dying?"

"I've avoided death for hundreds of years... and yet, it has already claimed you once before."

Brittany jumps from a tendril erupting from the flesh of his palm, barely moving in time to avoid it sinking into her eye. Instead, a great slice of crimson blooms on her cheek where its razored touch had licked her skin. She touches at it, fingers red.

"Come, little warrior. It is time to die."

She cuts away the second one that comes for her, yelping as a third wraps around her ankle and sends her plummeting to the ground. Brittany lands hard on her shoulder, rolling out of the way in time to avoid its sharper end. Her mail saves her from a fourth to the belly, and she scrambles up, sweating.

Despite her prowess, she is mortal. Brittany is reminded of this in every swipe of his power that cuts at her body, every superficial sting she doesn't quite manage to avoid. Every time she seeks to break his weapon another one regenerates in its place.

_Let me aid you._

An invisible hand covers her own; her palm glows blue and the next swing of her axe creates a bolt of energy that strikes Styrr in the chest and sends him flying, rolling across the grasses before he can stop it. Brittany blinks and turns it curiously in her hand as her opponent recovers. Ataecina's approval flows through her chest.

The ground opens underneath her feet; Brittany jumps to one side, hopping across boundaries as they come. Summoning the magic at will does not come easily, and she finds herself unable to use it when an opening presents itself; sweat drips down her front and she cries out as he scores a large slice down her calf, weeping red blood into the dank earth. The hole in her mind aches with Ataecina's presence and her whole being feels full and off-balance, a liquid weight that tilts her wrongly.

She surges forward despite it and collides with him in a clumsy clatter of limbs, her axe flailing to catch in the hardness of his ribs. Styrr grunts, black blood bleeding out, and they roll over and over until sky and earth meld together.

Brittany sits on his chest and elbows him harshly, cheekbone crunching under the heavy blow. He bares his teeth as she rolls them to avoid an erupting tendril that seeks to drill itself through her back. Axe underneath her, she wraps her legs around his hips and seeks the final blow.

"Styrr!" comes a child's voice, and it startles Brittany enough that she doesn't notice his fist aimed for her face until it snaps her head to the side. Her legs loosen and Styrr stands up, fists grasping at her collar as he hefts her into the air with her toes precariously touching the ground.

"A valiant effort," he grins, "but not enough. Only one god rules here."

He rears his fist back, dipped in sharp darkness. Brittany's eyes are on the basilica, so very close to her goal, as she struggles to free herself. His breath, cold and fetid, reminds her of the glimpses of Niflheim in her dreams.

A snarling whirlwind of teeth and claws interrupt her reminiscing as Styrr drops her, fighting to free his forearm from the jaw clamped around it. She recognizes her savior a moment before Styrr whips him with a tendril, furry body rolling away from the both of them with a sickening thump. Brittany cries out and makes to go to him, but the same tendril wraps around her wrist and pulls.

She resists, straining until the bones of her shoulder pop and shudder. The unbalanced fog that had so haunted her mind clears as she spies Sandalio's body struggling in the dirt; her palm tingles, and as she yanks the tendrils away from their bodies, a rush of blue so strong escapes her fingers that she fears Styrr will shake apart. It hits him so hard the ropes attaching them together snap, and he once again goes sprawling into the dust.

Brittany advances on him slower this time, knife drawn from her belt and clenched firmly in her hand. The man sputters on the ground, breathing through lungs battered and punctured, black blood frothing at his lips. She crouches by his head.

"I thought you said your god wouldn't let you die."

His dry smile still sends a shiver of unease through her, as weak as he is.

"It... has no use for me now. It has... her."

Brittany shakes her head, pressing her knife to his neck. His hand touches her wrist once, feather light.

"If you do this... kill us both."

She looks up to where his eyes travel; standing but a few paces away is the form of a child, her oddly slanted face stricken. _His sister_, Brittany realizes, sucking her lip into her mouth. Though she knows her beating heart is the cause of something unnatural, her innocence is not. The knife feels heavy in her hand, accusing.

With a reluctance that comes from years of ridicule she withdraws her blade, stuffing it back into her belt. Styrr watches through curious eyes as she stands.

"When you love someone as much as we love them," she mutters, "we do horrible things. You did for her what Santana has done for me, and I... cannot kill you for that. Not anymore."

Styrr laughs, but the tone is lighter than she's ever heard from him. "Then... I hope you release her. For both of our sakes." He gestures and his sister runs to him, cradling his head in her lap. Brittany swallows and her decision is made concrete, turning away. There has been too much death.

Her steps take her to Sandalio, who raises his head as she approaches, tail thumping weakly on the ground. She feels through his bloodied fur with a dread that does not come to fruition; a wide but shallow wound seeps blood with his exhale and surrounds his tender ribs, but nothing bleeds from the inside. Her hero will live.

"You saved me," she whispers into his furry head, pressing her nose into his cheek. "What were you doing here? You were supposed to be at camp."

He whines and licks at her nose, mouth stretched into a doggy smile as if to ask _where else would I be_? Maybe Sabbe was right after all.

"Come on, boy," she coos, coaxing him to shaky feet. "Follow me. It's time to finish this."

Together they rise and make their slow way to the doors of the basilica. She spares a thought to Eirik and Harald, their battle that must have finished by now. Either Harald nurses his wounds or Eirik marches, wounded but determined, to his death. Neither matters now, not when she stands on the steps of her lover's kingdom.

She rubs Sandalio's ear, pressing a kiss to his nose. "This is it," she tells him with a smile. "You stay here and wait, okay? I don't want you hurt."

He whimpers and rubs their noses together, worried.

"I know... but this is my job. You've been _such_ a good boy. No matter what happens, run back to Maria. She can take care of you."

She rubs her palm over Sandalio's cheek one more time, kissing his brow before standing and slowly walking to the great doors. A month ago she expected nerves so great it would shake her apart, but she feels oddly calm as she stares up at the icy portal. Death is no longer the stranger it used to be, and she will gladly fight with it by her side.

Ghostly fingers brush her cheekbone, and she leans into the soothing touch. Blue licks at her skin and she feels the pressure of a smile on her forehead.

_Help me end it, Goddess. _

_ I am with you._

With a deep breath, she opens the doors.

* * *

><p>Her skin prickles the moment she steps inside, but not from the cold.<p>

The great doors groan their discontent as she pushes them open, their ice carapace creaking around the hinges. All around her is the echo of greatness covered in a blue sheen, distorting the underlying image; everything feels vaguely out of place, a nightmare not yet come to fruition, and her feet slip and slide as she makes her way forward. A great smear of red plays out under her from where Anastasius must have dragged himself out to die.

Her heart trembles in her throat as she approaches the lone figure slouched casually upon their seat. A scroll is clutched in one grey hand, full lips she knows so well mouthing silent words that speak volumes. Santana sits upon her frozen throne with nary a glance in Brittany's direction.

As she draws closer, Brittany allows herself a brief moment to absorb the girl she knew so dearly. Santana's skin has gone grey and sallow, ashen, and the angry darkness from her eyes spiderwebs outwards underneath her flesh until her veins blacken and rot. Flashes of skin seen underneath her soiled linen does not stir the fire it once did—instead, it simply concretes the hammer of Brittany's heart away into a sharper resolve that pricks her lungs with every inhale. Her eyes focus on the dark crown that pierces Santana's forehead, emanating power.

Finally, Santana's lips turn into a smirk. "If I knew I was accepting company, I would have changed. Perhaps that hat the Pope is so fond of?"

"You never had to dress up for me before."

Santana's whole body freezes, scroll slipping from her numb fingers. The ghosts of those expressive eyes widen as they lock gazes for the first time in moons.

"B-Brittany?"

Brittany gives a sad smile. "Hello again, Santana."

"What are you doing here? How did you get through the city?" She pauses, raking her eyes down the deep cut that still seeps blood into her collar. "Who hurt you?"

Brittany watches as her fingers twitch with the desire to touch and close the wound.

"Styrr. He paid for it with his pride."

"He should lose his life for touching you."

Her eyes flash in a way that sets Brittany on edge, that familiar anger made so much darker.

"Leave him—I don't _care_ about what he did. I only care about you."

"Me?"

"Did you really think I would simply sit back and let you turn into this, Santana? After all we've done together, did you think I would just _abandon_ you to this madness?"

"You seemed content to leave me to it when we last spoke."

"Don't try that on me," Brittany snaps, "I say stupid things when I'm upset, you know that. You were the one who blocked me out and gave up."

Santana scowls in return. "What was I to do? Let you watch the darkness consume me? I sought to spare you the pain."

"_Spare _me? Santana, look around you! Turning my people into draugar, ravaging their towns, killing their crops... is that what you call mercy?"

"I made a pact when I returned you to the living, Brittany, and it was set in stone. This is the price I had to pay for my actions."

"You don't know that."

Santana bares her blackened teeth, fist clenched until tendrils bulge underneath. "Fate has played itself out the way it wished, and I wear the mantle of monster as I should. You waste your breath."

Brittany swallows as the light darkens, blackening with Santana's discontent. "Then I will waste my last breath asking to help you."

"Help me?" Santana barks out a laugh, hollow and disbelieving. "_Look around you, _Brittany," she sneers, "there is no helping now. I am the last god this place will ever see."

"_Please, _San. The centaurs are waiting—"

"The centaurs?" Santana smirks, lips cruel. "You think little twisted horsemen that run about like a dog cut from its master can help? My whisper could wipe them from the earth."

"Then try for me. If you still love me, let us finish this _together._"

Santana bites her lip hesitantly, the first expression Brittany recognizes blooming hope in her chest. "You know it is not that simple. We walk different paths now."

"You might think so, but I am still bound to you. You are in every breath I take, every thought I have. Our paths will always be joined. Are you truly going to abandon what we had for power?" Brittany doesn't bother to wipe at the tears that trail down her cheeks, watching as Santana's gaze softens. "You are not the Old One... you can still return to me. I promise."

"No, I am greater than the darkness now. But..." Santana deliberates, sweeping her gaze across the basilica. "You could join me."

"W-what?"

"We could rule together, just as we always have. We could make a future together with no one to stop us." She grins. "And if they do, well... Finngeirr here will fix that without you having to lift a finger."

Brittany notices the boy for the first time, his sickly skin glimmering in the unearthly light. Gaze voided, he watches her with something a little bit too lifeless to be agony, but just enough memory to be accusing. Tendrils suck at his face and obscure half under a writhing mass, bursting out from all places in a way that almost obscures the ragged stumps of his hands.

"Think about what we could do... we could be gods, together."

At Santana's eager look, Brittany sighs, scuffing at the icy floor. It was foolish to think she'd give it up so easily, but then the heart is a reckless, hopeful thing. With a heavy swallow she wipes at her eyes with the palm of her hand and shakes her head.

"I'm sorry, my love," she whispers hoarsely, drawing her axe as she takes a step forward, "but I can't. You aren't Santana. Not anymore."

Those black wings flare to protect their mistress, but it does not deter Brittany; the knowledge that any one of those tendrils could take her life away is juggled with the brief glimpses of her lover, seen in fleeting mannerisms that betrays the tenderness gone brittle with corruption. Santana takes a step back, startled.

"Brittany, what..."

She simply grits her teeth and continues her stride, barely pausing as a tentative tendril flicks out towards her. She swings, severing the thing in two, sparing nary a thought to the black slime that splatters over her skin. Santana looks at her like she is the true monster.

(And maybe she is for what she's prepared to do.)

A flicker of warning floats through her mind the moment before another tendril crashes into the place she used to stand, rolling out of the way and scrambling to her feet. Santana withdraws her extended limb hesitantly, eyes darting between her and the place she occupied moments before.

"How—"

Blue shimmers around her limbs as Brittany bursts into a sprint, taking the other girl by surprise. She ducks her way under a blow and swings blindly, close enough to feel the frost emanating from Santana's skin. The axe bites into flesh and they look at each other in disbelief as it sinks through Santana's collarbone, biting deep into the musculature. Brittany gapes, opening her mouth soundlessly as black blood spews from the wound.

Her world spins a moment later as Santana throws her away, sending her tumbling down the hallway. She catches a glimpse of her yanking the axe from her shoulder; the flesh heals as if nothing had been done and leaves smooth skin in its wake.

The axe skitters to nudge against Brittany's outstretched hand—she stumbles to her feet and grips it again, wiping away the trickle of blood from her bitten lip.

"Brittany, _please_, don't make me kill you."

But she simply shakes her braid back behind her shoulder, eyes flashing for the briefest moments. A soothing touch takes away the pain of her bruises.

"You would do that?"

The answer goes unsaid and Brittany tries again; she hangs heavily on that second presence in her head that guides her, springing her from one place to the next as Santana tries in earnest to knock her off balance. She jumps over a low sweep to her ankles only to catch one around the waist, grunting as it throws her. Brittany sinks her grip into its fleshy body and clings through the acid that eats at her skin, flying forward as Santana retracts it to herself. Brittany loses her hold, yelping as she sees alarm paint itself over familiar features in the seconds before they collide.

Impact crushes her against Santana's smaller frame, both of them rolling over and over—the first touch of Santana's skin against her own brings pain instead of pleasure, and Brittany has a brief moment to wonder if this will be their parting legacy before she hits the wall and spins off. Her helmet goes flying into the distance, dented and useless, and the world flashes in bright specks of white.

Through the ringing in her ears she distantly hears Santana snarling; a tendril grabs at her ankle and yanks her into the air, throwing her back into the basilica's main hall. She manages to keep the grip on her axe throughout the ordeal, fingers pressing gingerly against the great gash opened above her eyebrow. A human rag-doll—one who finally knows fear as Santana's hands set into bloom.

In a way, she's beautiful in her malice. Corrupted ferocity shadows the dip of her cheekbones and sets her obsidian eyes alight, hair wild and matted that whips with fire's wind. Brittany understands why some would call her a goddess now, secure in her own invincibility, but she rises shakily to meet her.

"Why are you doing this?" Santana asks, face grim. "There is only one way this path ends."

"If you thought so... why give me back my axe?"

A brief flicker of uncertainty darts across her face. "To pretend you have a chance."

Perhaps... but her doubt speaks otherwise. Brittany grins with renewed determination and charges forward into the fray again, fire's heat melting the ice underneath her feet.

Santana has overcome her hesitations of harming her lover—instinct prevails and Brittany doesn't get close, knocked away by a bolt of flame or a dark limb to the chest. Many times Brittany falls, and yet she always rises with that axe clutched tight in her grip. She sees how Santana grows worried in a way that betrays her new nature, and it spurs her to continue even after her body has all but given up.

_How do you harm something that won't die?_

One particularly hard hit slams into her side and she knows her ribs break, feels the agony as they splinter in the cavity of her chest. The crunch echoes so loud it rings in her ears even after she's skidded down the hall, collapsed into a bleeding heap on the basilica floor. Blood trickles from her mouth as she coughs with each breath a piercing knife.

But... she can't give up. Not yet. Not now that she's come so far, fought so hard for something within reach in the form of a girl standing before her, watching in disbelief as she rocks herself to her knees. Brittany hisses through her teeth as she jerkily raises herself to kneel on one, then another, stumbling into a standing position, tilted awkwardly as her left hand cradles the remnants of her shattered ribs. Her axe hangs limply in her right hand, covered in her own blood.

She takes a step forward and cries out, sinking again to the ground. Her injuries overwrite her thoughts and it is a labour to stand upright, trembling, her gaze locking with Santana's.

"I told you... I'd never give up on you," she mumbles, spitting blood.

Santana bites her lip, regretful. Her tendrils lower as Brittany struggles to advance even a pace.

"It means much that you didn't."

_Brittany._

The whisper comes and she looks around slowly, scanning the damned hall fruitlessly. Perhaps the blow to her head has finally ruined her.

But it comes again, louder this time. _Brittany._

"G-goddess?"

Though she sees nothing she feels a smile, serene and proud, bestowed upon her. Ethereal hands cup her cheeks and they bleed the pain out of her body.

_You have fought so hard, my child. So well. _

"But... it wasn't enough. I failed."

Distantly she hears Santana bristling, but the world fades away until all she knows is Ataecina's comforting embrace.

_Far from that, warrior. You have shown the depth of your love, and it is endless. Your task is over._

She blinks slowly. "W-what?"

_Rest, Brittany. I will end this. _

At first she fights the wave of calm that washes over her, unravelling the tension in her muscles and relaxing the strain of her thoughts, but the crippling fatigue that comes from her wounds overwhelms. She sighs and closes her eyes, allowing Ataecina to pour into her mind like a healing elixir until she overflows with peace—memories come to her of better times; spring and new beginnings, summer under the great oak trees, fall in a plethora of reds and yellows and oranges. Her limbs grow weightless.

Santana appears in all of her thoughts, fingers outstretched to take her away. She knows it isn't real, not truly, but she allows herself to pretend and takes her hand.

The sight of her smile is the last thing she knows as Ataecina fills her completely.

...

Santana takes a jerky step back as Brittany raises her face to the ceiling and lets her arms hang limp, axe clattering from her grip as her fingers loosen and turn to stroke the sky. The strange mist that hovered now thickens, glowing blue; it seeps in through her open mouth and nose, crawling through her ears, worming under the closed juncture of her eyelids until it consumes her. It wraps itself around her, condensing, teasing the pain from her expression. A shift in the air comes, and with it a familiar presence that sets all of Santana's teeth on the edge of breaking.

The glowing mist coalesces into a great pair of ethereal wings, blue as her own power used to be. They flare as the person who is no longer Brittany opens her eyes, twin galaxies in the darkness.

"Hello, Santana," Ataecina murmurs, her lips stretching into a smile.

Santana snarls, air vibrating with her anger. Though the world darkens still, Ataecina's light lets her remain the sole beacon in the shadow, vibrating with life and love—her radiant shroud lengthens into spiralling horns as she secures her place in the waking world.

"Where is she?" Santana hisses, voice dipping into demonics. "What have you done with her?"

"She is safe," the Mother reassures. "Her soul rests in my realm."

Her feet leave the ground as her great wings begin to beat, buffeting the ice pellets that spread outwards in a halo. Santana's tendrils drill themselves into the side of the church, lifting and levering until she, too, rests suspended in a mirror image.

"Bring her back."

"Why? You only seek to hurt her."

"I will not play your game, Goddess. You know she gave me no choice - the fight is over now."

"Is it? You know better than I that she will continue to fight until your hand ends her life."

Santana swallows, all too aware of the wavering, liquid drum of her lover's heart that struggles to deliver blood through pathways that tear and leak into the cavity of her chest. Each broken rib spears her crippled lung until every breath is a labour, each exertion an agony—and yet, she persists.

(The depth of Brittany's love always used to overwhelm her. It's all she can do to stop from being swept away with its tide.)

"My hand will be the one that heals her. Not yours."

"Then the cycle will begin anew."

A frustrated tendril bursts from the ground but Ataecina simply brushes it away, a shield of blue directing the attack. It careens into a pillar and great shards of ice rain down from above.

"Do not speak to me of petty cycles," Santana hisses. "I am no longer enslaved like the rest."

"Perhaps... but you are still bound to the choices you make, my child."

"I am not your child!" Santana screams, black dribbling from her mouth. "Not anymore! You lost that chance when you abandoned me to the voices and the darkness!"

Ataecina's sadness twists Brittany's features into something too familiar, too hurtful; she wears her lover's skin like a disguise but it doesn't fool Santana. She knows the powerful being that lurks under the innocent facade, the reach of eternities locked beneath her fingertips.

"I gave all my children free will when time began, Santana. What they do with it rests with them. Sometimes... the path to the light leads astray."

"The light would watch my friends suffer where the darkness saved them."

"And now? As I accept your friends into my realm, are they saved?"

Santana bares her teeth, flame swirling across her fingers. "Do not play coy. I know what I have done."

"Then you know why I remain."

Santana studies her opponent's gaze, a brief flicker of nostalgia flitting across her face.

"You told me, many moons past, that you did not intervene in the dabbling of mortals."

"Oh, Santana... you became something _else_ long ago."

Santana lunges forward, her tendrils coiling and releasing all at once. Ataecina flies upwards and Santana follows, punching holes in the basilica for leverage. They clash in the sky and a shockwave follows their first touch that shatters great sheets of ice from their perches. Air is sucked from her lungs at the power she feels vibrating under pale skin, and it stuns her so that she catches a blue bolt and flies into the ceiling before steadying herself.

Her crown is a heavy reminder of all that rests at stake as she whips a fireball at the Mother and pushes away from the crumbling infrastructure that threatens to come down, the first cracks spreading themselves along the ceiling. Something that feels a bit too much like desperation hangs around her shoulders as they stare each other down.

"I will devour your realm and all that rest within it," she hisses, allowing the white flame to crawl around her shoulders. "And then I will search out the White Christ after you have been silenced."

"The Fates think otherwise."

Ataecina catches Santana's fist in her palm and swings her around, slamming her against the ceiling. Santana bunches her legs underneath her and surges down, catching the Goddess by the midsection and forcing them both to plummet into the floor. Holes are carved as they crash through the ice layer and into the stone, sting barely felt as Ataecina's great wings flare to push them apart. Santana snarls and strikes her with a tendril in the soft junction of her neck—where she expects to feel bones break there is nothing, rigidity that withstands the force of the blow. An invisible force cuts the tendril apart and punches itself through her chest, opening a great sucking wound that sends her skidding back out to the main floor.

She has no time to recover, rolling out the way of the Mother and her dropping attack; blue invades her vision as her wings descend and Santana yanks herself out of the way, willing her chest to heal faster as she spins to face her opponent. She'd forgotten the thrill of a challenge, but her foolish mind underestimated the potency of a passive god—every movement Ataecina makes strains with power, the likes of which she has only touched fleetingly before.

The Goddess smiles in a way that could almost be counted as a smirk, hands clenched by her sides. "Have you reconsidered Brittany's offer?"

"Do not speak of her, traitor!"

They collide once more and the basilica begins to shatter around them—patches of sky bleed into the space as their bodies make holes in the wooden supports, Jesus and his great colourful apostles splintering into a million fragments as Santana strikes and misses, driving her tendril into the glass windows instead. Still, her swipe unbalances the Goddess, and another tentacle finds purchase on her ankle and throws with all her might.

She careens into a wall and Santana presses the advantage, whipping her back and forth, a sense of victory finally beginning to bleed into her grim worry. She grins darkly as Ataecina wobbles to catch her balance in the air, largest tendril surging back to spear in for the kill.

The Goddess shifts out of the way, wrapping one strong hand around the appendage. In the space of an inhale she's yanked forward, her other supports ripped from their anchors, tumbling through empty air. They cross paths and Ataecina rears back; her palm strikes Santana full in the face and the pain is a million deaths at once, torment shooting through her skull until her whole body goes tense from the agony.

_Sleep, _the Goddess commands, and Santana spies open sky before her world is devoured in a brilliant bolt of blue.

* * *

><p>Steps echo as the Goddess stops before Santana's limp form, a sad smile gracing her lips. Blackness dribbles from her open mouth and forms a grey sludge where Brittany's blood joins to meet it, falling freely from her split skin and weeping wounds. The basilica trembles around her as she gathers her charge in her arms, cradling her close to her bloodied chest. Even now, with the power of a thousand stars in her hands, she seems so small and fragile - ready to break at any moment. Her torso closes its own wound as they make their way down the hall together.<p>

Ataecina steps from the basilica just as the entire ceiling collapses under its injuries, buckling with a moan. She looks out over Rome and the nightmare Santana has created, the draugar that have begun to thin in number the longer the battle goes on. Fires rage where the men have set torches to take the corruption from the ground and throw it into the sky.

A furry head nuzzles her thigh and she smiles, bestowing her blessing upon their spirit guardian.

"Go to Maria," she bids him, "you are needed."

She does not watch him leave, but instead turns to look upon the cursed basilica once more. A shamble of itself that holds nothing but foul memories; Ataecina's whisper sets it alight, fire springing from every corner, burning the blackness from its wood.

The blaze frames her silhouette until even her shadow glows; a familiar enemy drags himself from the street into the open, sword that once held ready now loose in his grip. The echo of Brittany's ire stirs in her chest, rattling her broken ribs, but she does not deliver retribution unto the defeated man who falls to his knees before her. Eirik gapes openly as she pushes off with a powerful burst from her thighs, throwing herself into the air where she sails far above the carnage of the mortal realm.

Ataecina follows the heartbeat of her most beloved priestess through the wispy white clouds—the distinctive taste of old magic rests on her tongue the closer she gets, saturating her ancient thoughts in times long passed. Black grass greets her feet as she lands within a spindly copse of trees, trampled by hoof and hand. A great hush falls as all beings kneel before her.

"Goddess?" Maria whispers, trembling, unsure whether to look at the face of her Mother or her fallen daughter. Ataecina smiles, clutching Santana tight.

"Rise, my children," she intones, "and begin the circle. It is time."


	31. Chapter 31

**A/N: **Well guys, this is it. The very last chapter of Battlesong. This journey has been a crazy and amazing one, and I'm in debt to so many people for making it the experience it turned out to be.

I was in way over my head when I started, and I know it's taken a long time, but we're finally at the end. I never expected it to grow into the massive project it is today, reaching over 350k and spanning more than two years of my life. I'd like to say thank you to my friend **Taka**, grumpy old man that he is, for sticking with me since I first thought of this two years ago; **Lin (SwingingCloud)** who motivated me to continue through some real backwards cheerleading and constant griping with some honest compliments thrown in, and even **Kate (PerfectlyCensored)** - despite having some difficulties recently, you've helped me in more ways than you know. Not to mention all those, anon or not, who took the time to leave reviews on my little project with such heartfelt messages that it always inspired me to keep going.

But of course, my greatest and deepest thanks goes to my amazing beta, **LeMasquerade**. I don't want to think about the hours and hours of planning and editing we've already put into this monster, and the hours still to come, but you've been there to beat some sense into me ever since you barged into my life and took control. It's been an insane ride with you, but I'm honoured to have shared it, and I wouldn't change it for the world.

Though there will not be a sequel, Brittany and Santana's journey is far from over. I'll be going over the chapters in the months that come and editing them further... and who knows, maybe they'll make their way into the hands of a publisher some day. Battlesong is something that will always stay with me, and I hope will always stay with you. These girls have had an amazing story to tell, and I'm proud that I have been their voice. I'll miss them dearly.

And with that, for the last time... enjoy!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 31<strong>

**catch me, heal me, lift me back up to the sun**

**I choose to live**

**March 1st, 913**

The fallen priestess is handled with the tender care of an old crone; Ataecina murmurs ancient prayer into her wild hair where it is pillowed against her strong shoulder, her hands chasing away the blackness where they clutch at her skin. Santana remains unknowing to the world as Ataecina sets her upon the dying ground.

White fire sears a circle around her body, and the Sami settle outside of the charred boundary, their movements tentative and soft. None wish to wake the sleeping god, but still do they sit with their legs crossed before themselves, hands both young and old clutching at reindeer-skin drums whose surfaces offer a glimpse into their religion, as sacred as the Goddess herself. The centaurs stand sentry behind them, eternal eyes grim.

At Sabbe's whisper the drums begin to beat in a rhythm as old as time, the earth's heart taken straight from its core. It echoes through the withering trees until it resonates in the space between the body and the soul, waking the animals that still remain until they surface, blinking into the sun. Sabbe's eyes flutter closed as the earth's song flows through his being, his tongue wetting his dry lips as he opens his mouth to sing.

The song of the Sami—joiking—has no true words, but means more than words could ever say. It is a call for the spirits that slumber to reclaim their rotting land, for the winds that blow to chase away the shroud that lingers upon it. Forgiveness and deliverance, redemption and ascendance; their song is not about the earth for it _is_ the earth and all who reside within it.

The _noaidi_ from all the different groups answer his call and the circle is alive with the chant that has no words, the pound of their drum lulling each of them into the spiritual realm where their body is simply the anchoring husk. Those centaur standing sentry take up the joik until their voices are a deep drone that follows the beat of the drum; Sabbe and his people chant and clash over them in a chaotic harmony that turns almost deafening. Even Ataecina bows under its power that flickers into life as a celestial wind that rustles her ethereal wings.

Maria steps to her side, entranced. "Will it work?"

"That is up to Santana to decide, my child."

The joik does not falter as Santana stirs, brought back into consciousness by the deafening pound of the _noaidi, _who sing without fear just inches from her form. Their chant, life put into sound, drills into her temples until each syllable is a spear of pain, pulsing and eating at the blackness that has cemented itself into the deepest reaches of her. She moans, pressing her forehead into the ground in an effort to dampen the sound—the thorns of her stone crown bleed her black blood into the earth.

(Another presence stirs, deep in the cold pit of her chest. Its weight is one not felt in moons, the cold coil of consciousness pulling across the inside of her torso. It stings.)

Memory comes back to her in fractions of feeling, ending with the hand pressed to her face and the agonizing embrace of a god. Her brow furrows as she digs her claws into the dry split of the earth, refusing to let the chant wash her thoughts completely clean.

"What have you—" she groans as another bolt of pain flashes through her skull, its seeking song attempting to pull the tiny threads of her nerves straight from the flesh they feed. Her fingertips are weightless with the feeling of unravelling and she pushes back against it, forcing herself to her feet though she stands crooked and slumped from the weight of the magic slithering around her shoulders. Though her vision blurs, unsure and clumsy after her time spent unconscious, it's impossible to miss Ataecina, who still occupies Brittany's body like a parasite, stealing it away.

They lock eyes and the hatred that blooms surprises even her; the memory of her defeat is fresh in her mind, humiliating, and her entire body hums with the want to rip her soul straight from her host. She looks now upon the swaying Sami, their drums vibrating in their hands. Nothing protects them, clad in only their reindeer garments.

"You think this can stop me? A few magic users and a song?" The slight trembling of her muscles betray how deeply their chant cuts, but she licks away the moisture that gathers in the knot of her lips, her tendrils slowly uncoiling heavily from the sinuous expanse of her back.

Ataecina's smile is knowing, coy in ways that fits wrong upon Brittany's mouth.

"You, of all people, should know the power of a song."

Santana throws her black limbs forward at the nearest _noaidi_, so caught in his trance, but the ethereal wind shimmers as a shield and it bounces away, trapping her within the circle. She snarls and lashes out again, throwing her might against the barrier, but the chant is stronger and she remains.

Again and again her tendrils thud against her prison, beating helplessly on the barrier, but she remains snared. The first, foreign feeling of unease curls in the hollow of her throat, pressing her palms to the faint outline that wavers in the air. It burns through her skin, and in her weakened state the pain is startling, sharp and crisp that has her yanking away with a hiss.

It's wrong. She feels too human.

"I will tear your little servants apart and feed them to my own!" Her vow rings hollow even as her anger darkens the skies, becoming bloated and heavy with celestial rain. Maria glances nervously to the heavens, but her Goddess remains unfazed, never once parting gazes with her charge. The knowing look in Ataecina's eye has Santana's unease turning to a panic as the presence in her chest sleeps no longer, its vigor shaking the ground she stands upon. Each touch of the barrier against her skin saps at her energy, and her next threat is caught on a gasp, clutching at her temple as the volume of the chant increases until all she can hear is their wordless language and the way it bleeds into her mind, sowing its seeds.

The centaur outside the circle add their voices to the joik until it seems the whole world sings as one, its power washing over Santana, scraping at her skin and pushing its way into her blood. Darkness curdles and shrinks away from its healing touch and she lashes out at nothing, eyes blind. It attempts to pick something from her that has _become_ her, the two joining until no one knows where one ends and the other begins, and the pain is excruciating in a way she never thought a god could feel. She thinks she hears a whisper of a word in her head, demanding her to resist, but it is swallowed by their call for a harmony she seeks to devour.

"You cannot hold me forever, Goddess," she growls, pressing her palms once again to the shield; it eats holes in her skin, but the pain is grounding, clearing. The Sami will tire and she will be set free, rid of this crippling uncertainty that writhes with the remains of the Old One. But Ataecina's eyes are too calm for a god about to die, her smile too soft as she steps forward until Santana can see every wound she has inflicted upon her lover's body. A brief flicker of guilt flutters through the cold cavity of her chest as her ruby-red blood drips like wasted gems into the grass.

"Perhaps not forever, but... for now."

_You are strong, but you are young. You do not yet understand the limits this world has created._

"I have no limits!" she snarls, but the end comes as a strangled scream when Maria lends her own song, forcing her to her knees. Santana's crown has turned into a vice that holds her captive, smothering, and despite a voice in her head screaming otherwise she attempts to tug it off. It remains locked into her skull, fused into her being, unyielding even as Sophias is heard above the others and her stone prison vibrates in a way that rattles her apart.

She digs her fingers into the dry earth as the full weight of the centaurs' legacy settles over her and presses her into the ground, too heavy to resist. _I will not be beaten again_, Santana vows to herself, but her thoughts are scarcely heard above the chant and another thought that drills in her mind, insistent and demanding in a way that forces her to comply. She glances up into the Mother's glowing eyes.

_Listen._

...

All at once the chant disappears and she is left with silence that rings hollow in her head; there is grass underneath her once more, lush and green and so far removed from her new reality. Santana blinks; the scent that comes from the earth is familiar in a fashion she never thought she'd know again.

Ataecina waits as she rises to her feet. Her true form has been returned to her, and her bronze skin gleams in the eternal sunlight as she watches her former charge take a wary look around.

"One can only strive to understand in silence."

Santana snorts, flexing her hand. Her burns have healed, power flooding back into her without the Sami to disrupt her thoughts. Once again does she feel strong—the invincible god she was when Brittany first stepped foot into her throne room.

"What is it you wish to understand? You are all-knowing, are you not?"

"I know that we stand in my realm as equals, and you have a choice."

"And what would that be?"

"You fight me, and one of us will die, or you stop listening to the lies of the Old One long enough for my words to take their hold."

Santana pauses, lowering the tendrils that have pulled themselves up to strike.

"Words are useless. I want only one thing from you."

"What do you hope to gain from my powers? I preserve what you wish to destroy."

"Your cycles are coming to an end, Goddess. With your strength I will shatter the circle and bend it to _my_ will, and when I have finished with this world, I will follow the call of others. The White Christ is first—I will enslave his angels and take his forgiveness from his bones."

Sometimes she sees it when she dreams—a man bowed before her, his hands pressed upon the floor of his world; through the holes in his palms she can see down into her own domain, a place once fertile that has gone dark and barren with rot. The souls of his fallen people tremble in her presence as her hands cradle his head, smoothing her thumbs down the thick prominence of his cheekbones, her claws pressing into his temples until her touch takes his thoughts away. One by one his angels will find themselves shackled, bound to her will, and when she faces his father it will be with an army of those who once resided under his watchful eye.

"I have seen the pain his people have caused under his name," Santana sneers, "and seek to return the favor. His swords—and they _are_ his swords, not theirs—have come down over the heads of too many. Once he is silenced, they will have nothing."

"Is that what you wish? Silence?"

"Eventually. The heartbeat of the earth is so loud when there are others to feed it. It clashes and pounds until I can think of little else... my touch will smother it, as it does all things, and it will begin to die."

"If this world dies, so will all who rest within it."

Santana laughs, and the sound echoes harshly through the trees. "Then let them die. Their time upon _my_ world is coming to an end. Those that do not have the power to save themselves are not worth the flesh they wear."

"And then?"

"Once I am done with Rome, with Europa, I will find others. They will throw armies against me but I will wipe them from this ground—Mikhail's people and their dynasties will fall; those from the south that have taken my homeland will suffer. As they crumble, so too will their gods, until little remains except their bodies that will continue to serve me—my throne will be their skulls with the flesh flayed from them, and these rivers will run red from those that choose to fight me. Their gods will weep as I devour them, taking their power, until it is impressed upon each singular thread of fate that I am the only one that remains... and when this world is finished, I will turn west. I have heard the calls of the gods from across the sea—there are others of which we do not know."

Ataecina studies her for a moment as her power shows her this new world that she will soon wish into fruition, where she wanders the whispering winds as the singular being that so delivers life and death. Santana grins, her bones humming with the thought.

"And then?" Ataecina repeats, her eyes calm.

The grin fades from Santana's face, her brows furrowing momentarily.

"Once all have fallen, and you are the only one that remains. What then?"

Santana's mouth opens soundlessly, brain stalling. So caught up in her vision of a silent world, she had neglected to think of the aftermath, a lonely god wandering forever in the desolation she had created. The world around them warps and shimmers until they stand on a flat plateau—the harsh air whips at her cheeks and the ground is barren underneath her feet, dull and lifeless. Bleached bones wink up at her from where they remain buried, their stories snuffed out by her hand.

"I... I will keep some alive. Allow them to live."

The image changes; a few humans come into being on this desecrated ground, their skin hugging so tight to their bones she can see the skeleton underneath. Their faces are haunted and forlorn, those of people who are intimately familiar with all that has been lost. Living ghosts.

"For how long? Your lust is greater than your will."

A tendril bursts from the ground and carves itself through the chest of one of the men—he makes hardly a noise as he hits the ground, finally released into the void that still yawns beyond this existence. The others barely react, their eyes glazed with fever.

Santana rubs at her sternum as that heavy presence shifts again, writhing.

"Once everything is taken from them, beings can only suffer so much. Their pain will not satisfy the craving inside of you."

"I crave for this world to be mine."

"And when it is you will crave for something else, but all will be dead and gone. You will have created your own eternal prison."

The quiet here is unnerving—the ground does not thud underneath her feet like she remembers since her youth, nor does she hear the murmur of a stream or the hiss of trees rubbing their leaves against one another. All that comes is the quiet clink of shackles from the remaining humans who have lost their humanity long ago, husks of living beings that simply move to satisfy the persistent thump of their decaying hearts.

"I can create other beings. I succeeded once before."

But it won't be the same, she knows. They are of her darkness—tainted—and there will be no pleasure as they fall. Her body so craves the pure ruby blood that comes only from things given life through Ataecina's touch... a touch that will no longer exist once she takes it away.

The Goddess sees the pensive shift in expression as the dead wind blows the hair from her eyes, and licks her lips to taste the beginnings of hope.

"You said you see the pain that the White Christ causes under his name, and perhaps it is true, but can you truly say that this suffering is not greater? Not only do you take away their homes and their lives, but you take from them their gods and an afterlife, an endless void where they will anguish forever out of your reach. Is that what you desire?"

Another movement inside the hollow cavity of her torso has Santana pressing her palm to her chest, grimacing. There is a voice that whispers, tells her not to listen, but it is quiet in this place beyond the mortal realm. The voice attempts to shroud her own thoughts, but they come through regardless, doubting.

Ataecina takes a slow step forward, horns glinting in this sickly light. "When you said all will fall... do you truly understand what that means?"

From the man that fell sprouts another being, and despite the starvation that eats at the bones and the torment that languishes behind the eyes, Santana would recognize that face even if her eyes had no more sight to see. She yelps as Brittany gazes back at her, body bent and broken under the dominion of her power.

"Stop it!" The image wavers and trembles but does not break, and Ataecina watches as Santana reaches out to the ghost, the first flickerings of fear running across her face as her hands pass through the fate that could be. "I would never... not her. All of this was to protect her. Bring her back."

"If you are to rule alone, she will die. If not in body, then in spirit."

Santana swallows as the image of Brittany turns away, betrayal flashing in her eyes gone dead and cold with defeat.

"I could keep her with me. Safe."

But she can already see the misery that would be present as everything Brittany knew and loved crumbled to dust under the hand of a girl she once thought she could trust. Even if her heart would beat and her lungs would breathe, giving life to her brain and body, her mind would wither away and die along with the world her mortal body so knows. And... maybe her lust would grow too great, her impatience too strong, and she would... would—

Santana shakes away the thought but it burns still, recoiling at the notion that she could take away Brittany's life like she took away so many others. Like it meant nothing more than the people who now moan and whisper as her draugar.

"All those people were like Brittany to someone else. Their lives as precious to another."

"We... we are different. Bound by fate."

"Fate can be changed, can it not? You seek to do so."

The fallen priestess runs her hesitant eyes once again along the world she seeks to create. Brittany's ghost shuffles along listlessly, the dry ground splitting open the skin of her soles, and others just like her repeat the same motions. The earth has reached an end, an impasse, stuck forever between renewal that she will not allow and death that destroys all she loves.

"It has not shown you the eternal silence it craves, Santana – once you have erased all forms of life, it will dispose of you and reside over its dead world alone. You were only ever a means to an absolute end."

What did fate have planned for her, safe from the Old One? Would they have been spared the darkness that knows nothing except destruction without discrimination? Could Brittany still look at her as she used to, before her twisted attempt to keep her safe pushed her further away, or was she always destined to become the tool moved by the hand of a ruthless god? Endless possibilities that will now never come to fruition, an eternity damned to spend wondering what could have been.

Her days in the summer come back to her in snatches sometimes, memories of a better time. She stands on the precipice of all she could want, a whole universe about to bend underneath her power, but... it does not taste as sweet as what she remembers of Kaupang. Once the world dies, that contentment will be forever out of her reach.

But... what of the contentment she has taken from others? Villages that were just collateral damage, peripheral thoughts as her fire seared the flesh straight from their bones. Their stories are those that allowed her to come into the world to begin with, and her thanks was ripping their limbs from their bodies as they died. She thinks of Brittany, who hates to take even a single life; the sadness in her eyes as she looked up at her and saw a stranger wearing the face of the girl she loved.

The person she swore she could be for Brittany would never have done this—the girl that ran away from her homeland a summer ago would have sooner died. Is there truly nothing left of who she used to be? The Old One had promised her everything, but she returns with nothing but regrets clutched in her clenched fists and a pain that can no longer be hidden away.

A weariness rests upon her shoulders, and Santana kneels slowly to drag her claws through the dust.

"She tried to kill you in the basilica."

Her hand pauses as feet come into her vision.

"Brittany's love is eternal, but not unconditional. You are bound, now and forever, but it rests with you what that union will become."

Santana's smile is mirthless. "She was ready to kill me."

"And you ready to kill her."

Her smile falls, and she crushes the dirt in her hand. "Do not remind me of how far I have fallen. I already know."

"But you didn't. Not then." Ataecina kneels until she can look into her eyes, one soothing hand resting on her knee. "Are you willing to rule without her?"

She could live without her. Her months have been spent without Brittany's presence, chasing another satisfaction that is now within her reach. But once that has been exhausted and there is nothing remaining, it will be... hollow. Brittany fills her with a life and love forgotten, something she now knows empties her without it. She can only fill herself with falsities for so long before her thoughts return to the happiness she used to have. The happiness that others had before she took it away.

"No. Not anymore."

"Then you have learned."

But Santana shakes her head, baring her black teeth in frustration.

"This misery... it all belongs to me. I caused this."

"If it is yours, then you can fix it."

"How can I _fix_ this? So many people have died, Goddess! I cannot return them to their loved ones, nor can I rebuild the villages that I have destroyed. Brittany was right to kill me."

Ataecina takes her charge's face in her hands, wiping away the guilt that has finally found its way to the surface. "Even as she tried, she never gave up on you. Do not give up on yourself."

Santana wipes at the black tears that come from her eyes. "What must I do?"

"Finish this."

The ground warps underneath her feet until they stand once again on green grass, her future universe crumbling under the weight of her regret. They both look to the dark barrier that bleeds its corruption into Ataecina's realm, stretching up until it disappears into the ether beyond. Santana slowly stands, heavy and unsure. The Goddess smiles her reassurance, and Santana steps forward to face her creation.

All those nights ago it was erected to spare those she loved the pain the darkness always brings, but her attempt at salvation only drove them further away. It has been so _long_ since she has heard Brittany's voice fill the hollows of her head, so long since the Old One replaced Ataecina's guiding light, and she tires of the only voice she hears being her own.

Her mother had once told her to be careful of the darkness, that it simply corrupts and decays that which it tries to save, and Santana spits some more blackness into the grass. Perhaps love had blinded her, the Old One whispering promises, but she is no god (not anymore). Fate cannot be changed by mortals. Odinn had to release his valkyrja back into the waking realm, hands bound by the tendrils that had taken Brittany away, and now a whole path of her life is never to be. Perhaps... a new one can sprout from the death of the old, one that walks a different way but equally so in the light.

The paths of many people have been altered forever, swept away by her careless hand—but if Ataecina has ever told her anything, it is that rebirth comes in even the most hopeless of places.

The thing in her head screams, thrashing about in the cavity of her chest, but she clenches her jaw. All those that have died because of what she has done guide her hand so that it lays upon the barrier; the lightest touch turns it to a brittle glass, and it creaks like an old glacier as the cracks begin to spiderweb from under her fingers, growing and deepening until it courses along the length of the wall the Old One convinced her to create. The heaviness in her chest grows until her flesh expands grotesquely, but she ignores it, pressing and pushing and praying until the first piece falls away.

Her protection is not faultless. Some may not be saved, but they will not be kept in a place they do not belong by a darkness that has no place in the world. She sheds the mantle the Old One has given her, the title of a god and the mask of a monster, and with it goes a weariness collected from moons of being out of step with a dance that used to come so naturally.

More and more of it tumbles down, dissolving as it falls, breaking and booming and echoing so very loud in her deafened ears. The darkness that had begun to grip Ataecina's realm lightens before sinking out of sight, withering away. Balance returns as the last piece shrivels into nothingness.

A figure stands on the other side, and their mail gleams in the strong sun as they take a step forward. Santana trembles as Brittany strides to meet her in the middle, an eternity between their stare.

"You're home."

Santana smiles as Brittany wipes the moisture from her eyes. "I'm sorry I left."

"I forgive you."

A burden lifts from Santana's shoulders, and she swallows as she takes her lover's hands.

"I need to end this."

A broad grin stretches across Brittany's lips.

"Then let it end."

...

Santana returns to her own body with a sucking gasp, jerking violently in the dying grass. Every muscle in her body screams in disjointed agony from where the song of the Sami hammers itself into her corrupted limbs, stripping the blackness from her tendons and ligaments. She does not fight it as she used to, Ataecina's proud eyes pressing onto her forehead, but instead allows it to tear her apart so that she may convalesce anew. Perhaps this is what it feels like to die.

**You will remain!**

She cries out as the presence that sits so heavy in her chest lashes out; her tendrils flare and slam themselves against the barrier until her spine strains under the pressure, cracking and healing and splitting again. The Old One has awoken from its slumber, and its anger is so great her lungs threaten to burst.

**You think that we can be parted? We are One!**

Santana presses herself against her prison, and the pain of her flesh burning and curdling allows her to think. The chant of the Sami has swelled, booming, echoing, and swallowing the darkness, but it is not enough to tame the violent god that seeks to rip her apart from the inside.

_I would rather die than be joined a moment longer._

A dry laugh sounds in her head and it brings a fresh wave of torment that has her pulling at her own hair. **After all that I have given you, you seek freedom? **

_What have you given me? A madness I did not want? A power that was never truly mine? You lied to me!_

**I have waited eternities for these moments, priestess. I will not let you squander them.**

Her stomach churns as she feels the Old One's tendrils snake through every one of her limbs, controlling them as if she was a puppet. She rolls until her back presses against the barrier, burning and bubbling, the smell of smoking flesh floating through the air. Even with all these voices joining as one it is not enough to escape its grasp, and Santana writhes as it splits her mind apart.

Dimly, she's aware of her mother hurrying across the circle, Sophias and Ataecina pushing through the centaur so that their shins press firm against the Sami's backs. The joik reaches a fever pitch and she clutches her head in her hands; her crown trembles as it begins to crack.

**I will take your body even if your soul must die.**

Ataecina stretches out her hands until she joins them with Maria and Sophias—her voice added to the song is a spear that reaches straight into her mind, and the Old One shudders, temporarily drawing back. In this moment of clarity she sees others come to join the circle; the shimmering form of Samuel's ghost who clasps hands with Maria, Hypotas, Philokrates who watches with a wary eye. The last one to come and complete the circle is Brittany, her soul descending from Ataecina's realm, joining them all together. They lock eyes and Santana finds it in herself to roll back onto her knees.

**What do you choose, priestess? **

Her hands curl over her crown that leaks blackness down on her face.

_I choose to live._

It splinters in her hands, flying in all directions—the Old One roars its fury, and the slam against her ribcage has her stomach churning, gagging on the darkness that she coughs up and spits out onto the grass. The more it fights the more she throws up, eyes clamped shut, the chant pulling it from her. Something rests in her throat, heavy and slick, and as her stomach heaves it hangs out of her mouth, writhing.

Her claws sink into the mass and she pulls it from herself—her chest gives a sickly lurch as it detaches, every fiber of her muscles protesting as she takes their sustenance from them. Santana gags and gags in a never-ending tunnel of pulling as the tendril emerges, wrenched from its home.

**You will never be forgiven, **the Old One hisses, and for the first time she hears the panic in its tone.

_But I will be free._

The last of it is cast onto the grass and she sucks in a great trembling breath, falling onto her side. Hollow from head to belly, stripped of everything that made her strong, she watches as the dark mass flails for a moment before it bubbles and dissolves into a foul liquid, sinking down into the grass where it spreads itself out and away.

The drums go silent and one by one the Sami quiet, wobbling for a moment before falling onto their backs. Her prison destroyed lets others in, and she whimpers as arms wrap around and cradle her close.

Pale hands grip her biceps as Brittany gathers her, uncaring of the filth she kneels in or how her ribs protest the movement. Santana cries her countless apologies into the crook of her neck.

Brittany allows her to mourn for all the generations she has silenced, pressing the words unsaid into her wild, tangled hair.

* * *

><p><strong>April 27<strong>**th****, 913**

Sunset comes and falls to leave all in the shroud of the night; its embrace brings a renewed sense of peace to a people who grew to hate the dark, the stillness of spring settling into slumber. The scent of blooming flowers is something no one now takes for granted.

Brittany watches the dim torch above her head cast gentle shadows on the ancient bark that surrounds her, shapes and characters of a life long past. The bruise that had once stretched from underneath her arm to her hip has faded, and her wounds have shrunk to fine scars that hardly portray the pain they caused. Each breath is a blessing, even more so when she feels exactly what is pressed up against her.

Santana slumbers on, lips parted so that she mouths silent things into the skin of Brittany's collar. It wasn't easy, not even with the centaurs generously providing shelter and a place for her to heal without conflict. Each day was a struggle as her body began to rid itself of the darkness that had penetrated every single cell; it would sweat out from her pores, leak from her ears and nose, come from her lungs. Her tears—a common sight in the first month—still ran black for two weeks after the Old One was displaced. Brittany would hold her hair back at night when she vomited, purging herself, sick from the nightmares that were really just memories of a past she ached to forget.

Even worse than the physical wounds were the mental ones. So quickly stripped of an unbearable power, she felt helpless, weak and wandering—the Old One had ripped a great hole when it left, far greater than where it had brushed against Brittany, and Santana was slow to heal. Her guilt came in waves that left her immobilized, begging Brittany to kill her so that she may pay for what she had done, not knowing that this burden she would carry for the rest of her life is payment enough.

Perhaps Santana will forever struggle with her grief and anger, resting side by side like twin demons, but between these come moments of peace where Brittany can see her returning to herself. Every _sólarljós-bros _that comes from her, tentative like she is unsure if she has the right, brings a new hope that refuses to fade.

Brittany slips out of bed and presses a soft kiss to her temple, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. She looks younger like this, not haunted by the sins of her past for which she has yet to forgive herself. Sophias says it will come with time, as all things will, but time for one as old as her is a much different thought.

She dresses herself in a new tunic given to her by the centaur—her old one was matted by blood and torn apart, unable to be salvaged. A pair of trousers and her belt, followed by her boots and axe. Linen now, for the world has warmed, released from winter's frozen fist. It smells like new beginnings as she leaves their hollow and begins the trek outwards.

A few centaur cross her path and they nod as she passes, greeting her in their language. They have been welcoming to them, tending to their wounds both physical and emotional, not turning them away even when Santana screams and thrashes with her fire a whirling storm. They have their own demons born from the barbaric ancestry of their fathers, and know all too well the way she grovels for forgiveness when no one may hear.

Brittany hikes up a small incline, grimacing at the twinge in her ribs. Ataecina had set them back in place for her, pressing shut the holes in her lungs, breathing life back into her fading heart. Though she worships the gods of her father's father, she will forever be in debt to the goddess who rules over the great cycle and all who reside within it.

She emerges onto the edge of the cliff, and the strong moonlight lets her see into the valley below. Her kingdom is a beautiful one, surely, even more so with all the plants coming back into bloom... but she seeks something else. She doesn't know what, not yet, but it will show itself eventually.

A whisper of thought brushes against her mind; she follows the sound to a clump of figures who stand clustered by the rim of the cliff, their silvery bodies flickering in and out of the mortal plane. She recognizes them by the sound of their voices but nothing else, for their anger has melted away and left them once again as they were in life.

_You have succeeded. _

The spirits watch, their eyes returned, as she smiles.

"I have. You are free."

_We thank you, Bretagne of Kaupang. Odinn welcomes us to his hall. _

The boy whose jaw was once twisted unnaturally, gaping and grotesque, smiles back. His form shimmers for a moment, the winds taking away his shape.

_We forgive, valkyrja. We forget._

With a bow in her direction, they disappear completely.

Brittany looks at the spot they used to be for a moment, a burden lifting itself from her heart. Santana may think she has done little good by releasing herself, but Brittany knows better.

The thought of forgiveness brings her back to her current task. She swallows, clenching her hands tight as she steps closer to the edge. The drop spirals out dizzyingly deep, the fjord below a reflecting glass mirror that bounces the light of the moon back up into her determined eyes. Brittany sucks in a breath, taking a few firm steps away.

_Come on, Ataecina,_ she pleads into the void magic brings, _one more time. Just one more time. _

Her feet dig into the grass as she breaks out into a sprint, side burning. Wind whips by her face as she tenses, coils, and releases, throwing herself off the edge and into the empty air beyond.

Free-fall has never been something Brittany wishes to experience, and a scream rips out of her throat as she plummets down into the valley. Her eyes water as she careens downwards, her tongue bitten so hard she tastes the coppery tang of blood. Santana would bring her back from the dead yet again just to berate her over how foolish she was, gathering her scattered body together.

The ground rushes up too fast and Brittany closes her eyes, waits for impact and the shattering blow that will—

_Come now, I would not abandon you after all we have done together._

She yelps as her body jerks in the air, a twinge in her back before her fall turns into a glide and she sails smoothly along the valley. Wings that glow with such strength they reflect her own image from the water have unfurled themselves from the hollows of her shoulder-blades, and she gives a tentative flap that sends her spiralling upwards into the sky.

Brittany grins sheepishly as she pushes herself faster, soaring through the clouds that blur past. She gives thanks to the Goddess, who shakes her head in her mind's eye, a disbelieving mother; tree and river alike blur past and she stretches her arms out, wind slipping through her fingers like the celestial threads of Freya's long hair. Twin figures join her, and she laughs as Huginn and Munnin brush their wings against her cheeks, their intelligent eyes joyful as they swoop and croak in great loops.

_You must thank them._

"For what?"

_ Your wings are not my blessing. _A coy smile, knowing. _I am not the only god that watches._

Together they cross kingdoms, soaring and sailing over land and water alike. She follows the beat of a heart she has always known, one that remains in her thoughts despite the days that pass. Brittany swallows as she finds herself above the sleeping village of Aarhus where this journey began.

Ships bob gently in the harbor, and men, scattered about the streets, reload their cargo for the last leg of the journey. Despite the darkness she doesn't miss the halo of fire-red hair she seeks, and her fortifying breath trembles as she swoops down from above.

The dust upon the road swirls as she lands in front of her father. A group of men are quick to surround her, weapons bristling, but they soon lose their bite as they catch the angles of her face, sharp yet soft in the light her glowing eyes cast. They look to each other hesitantly, shrugging their confusion, before Betar waves them away.

"Bretagne?" he asks cautiously, lowering his sword. Brittany smiles.

"I'm sorry I haven't come sooner."

He studies her strong posture and clean appearance, the new tunic to replace the old. "Where have you been?"

"The centaurs have been giving us shelter since the battle."

Betar's brows raise in realization as the _us_ slips from her lips.

"She lives?"

"The Old One has been banished, but she is still fragile. I've been tending to her the best I can."

As the information sinks in, she looks around.

"Where are the others? Did they survive?"

"At one point, the draugar simply... stopped. They dropped to the ground and died again, and we had assumed that Santana was dead, but it seems not. Fewer men died than I thought because of it—Eirik returned a little while after, mumbling about gods and fire."

"And Harald? Ragnar?"

"Ragnar is fine, old axe. A sword to the thigh, but it will heal."

He sighs heavily, looking to the ships.

"Harald fell in the fight against Eirik. We burned his body on a pyre so great all the gods took notice."

Brittany smiles sadly, but it lifts as her twin companions perch upon their shoulders. Huginn nibbles at her ear, telling her not to be sad, gifting her a glimpse into the great hall she no longer misses so bitterly and a new man that feasts within. She strokes her fingers down his glossy feathers and returns her attention to her father.

"And what now, now that the war has been won?"

"A time to rebuild, perhaps. The raids will be recommencing soon." He studies her, mouth taut. "Will you join us?"

"I have a new place now, father. You know this."

His silence makes her gather his hands in her own, squeezing tight to the skin she has known since childhood. "I... came to ask for forgiveness. I know I haven't been the easiest daughter, nor the most honorable, and it pains me each and every day that I betrayed your trust. But... I love her, father, more than I have ever loved anything in this world. I couldn't give up like Eirik did without trying one last time."

She sniffles, wiping at her cheek with a shrug of her shoulder. "I understand if I have disappointed you too deeply, but I wanted you to know the reasons behind what I have done."

His thumbs rub gentle circles into the tops of her hands. "When I was young, I went against the wishes of my father and married your mother."

Brittany looks up, surprised.

"She was known as a wildfire, never doing what she was told, but I was smitten from the first time I saw her. I chased her relentlessly even after I was told by others to stop. I was blind to everyone else but her."

He smiles faintly, squeezing her hands.

"As soon as I saw Santana, I knew she would be the one to take you away. The way you looked at her was the way I used to look at Svala... even if I didn't wish to admit it at first. But you are _so_ like your mother, Bretagne, and she would have been as proud of you as I am now."

(Brittany thinks of Valhalla and a woman with golden hair waiting at the doors.)

He draws her into his chest, hands shooing away the twin ravens who squawk their discontent, and she stands frozen for a moment as his strong biceps press into her tender so slowly her arms snake around his neck until she clutches at him tightly, fisting her hand through his long hair.

"I'm sorry I had to go against you," she whispers into his ear, and his beard tickles her neck as he shakes his head.

"I'm sorry it had to come to that."

Her wings wrap around him, and for a fleeting moment it is the two of them once more, as it should have been, caught in their own world. A flicker of thought brushes against her mind and her mother's phantom arms wrap around them both before she swallows and reluctantly pulls away.

A cold wind blows to her left, and she turns to see Stórhríð crouch before her, eyes tired but calm.

"You return."

"Only to say goodbye."

He nods knowingly, snowy beard scattering flakes onto the ground. "Tell the priestess I wish her well. And you, of course."

"Always. Are you to return north?"

"Perhaps... it seems wrong without Toppurinn by my side. Empty, almost. I may follow the Sami and see where fate takes me."

They stare at each other for a moment, and Brittany wraps her arms around his knee in their version of a hug, his massive hand cupping her back and pressing her gingerly to him. "If you ever come north again, find me."

She smiles. "And you, if fate happens to bring you elsewhere. South, maybe."

He grins wryly. "Going south is not something I ever wish to do again."

Her hands squeeze his knee before turning back to her father—his eyes shine wetly and she knows better than to comment, lacing her fingers through his once again.

"If I ever find myself in Nor Veg..."

He brings their joined hands to her mouth, silencing her with a sad smile. "You and I both know not to make promises we can't keep."

The town watches as she wraps him up again, knowing this goodbye is their last. The days of her youth seem so far away, taken from them but still kept close, and he gingerly strokes her braid in an echo of the first time he held her.

"Go be happy, Bretagne, and know my love flies with you."

Betar places a kiss on her forehead and gently pushes her away, gesturing to the open air. That small action feels more like forgiveness than anything else, and her smile is broad as she takes a few steps back, spinning around before flinging herself into the waiting arms of the night sky. Two figures wave until they fade from sight entirely.

...

Brittany stumbles back into bed and Santana stirs from sleep, her hands skating across her lover's wind-chilled flesh. She frowns as the coldness greets her, still half-dreaming. "Where'd you go?"

"To see my father."

"Oh. S'nice."

She rolls over and Brittany laughs lowly, brushing her hair over her back. Santana stills for a moment as she turns the words over in her sleep-addled mind before rolling back around, eyes open and confused.

"Wait, your father?"

"Yes," Brittany chuckles, "my father. Ataecina took me."

Santana yelps as cold skin meets her own, flesh prickling, but wraps her arms around Brittany's hips regardless and smiles.

"Why did you go to see the jarl?"

Brittany's face softens at the memory and she presses a kiss to the taut skin upon the hinge of Santana's jaw. (Each time she gets to touch her is a privilege, each kiss an honor. She has no intention of squandering such chances again.)

"To say goodbye."

Santana moves backwards to look her lover full in the face, eyes sweeping over the tender expression she sports, breath short with worry. "Why did you need to say goodbye? What happened? Is he hurt?"

Brittany soothes her by rolling them until her weight traps Santana, pressing down, and Santana is breathless for a whole other reason. "Perhaps a bit sad, but that is all. I told him I won't be returning to Kaupang."

Santana pauses and cups Brittany's face in her hands, stroking her thumbs across her fair brows. "Why would you do that? Kaupang is your home."

"A home is not a home unless you are there to make it one."

Santana's face goes unbearably warm and kind before she's pulled into a forceful kiss, a hand raking through her hair and another clutching at the sinuous expanse of her back. Brittany gasps into her mouth as her thanks is bled into the kiss, and Santana takes the opportunity to press her tongue inside, the warmth making all of Brittany's limbs wobble with no bones to hold them steady.

Her fingers curl in the skins that make their bed as she finally responds, sucking Santana's lower lip between her teeth. In the moons that they've been reunited there's been but a few touches and kisses, too focused on healing and remembering how to be together without the ghosts of the pasts keeping them apart. Santana's body against her own burns in a way she thought she forgot.

Brittany gasps as Santana's teeth find her ear, arching into the touch that skates over her breasts and sides, taking great care to press only gently into her healing ribs. Santana's hands are determined in ways they haven't been before, sure and steady as they cup her chest.

"Santana, are you—" fingers tweak her nipple and she groans, hips rolling against air, "are you sure?"

Lips return to her own and she is temporarily lost in the fervor of her kiss, one of Santana's rogue hands pulling at the back of her thigh until she straddles her hips, her weight sitting carefully atop the smaller girl. Her bones are still sharp in their angles despite her recovery, small and fragile, and she hovers gingerly in order not to harm her.

"When I was alone for all those nights," Santana murmurs, hot breath brushing against her face. "One of my greatest regrets was that I never had you in the way I so longed to for moons. I wanted it to be perfect, but I was too blind to realize that it would have always been perfect." Her breath hiccups slightly but she catches Brittany's hand that comes to wipe at the corner of her eye, bringing it instead to her mouth to softly kiss.

"When we parted... I thought I would never again get the chance to hold you, o-or touch you. It hurt more than anything. I thought you wouldn't want me after all that I had done."

Her hand upon Brittany's chest skates down, over her belly that trembles ever so slightly at her touch. "To know that you still choose me after all we've been through... let me show you how much that means. Please."

Brittany leans over, elbows pressing to either side of her head. "Then touch me," she murmurs tenderly, breath cutting out on a gasp as she feels fingers slide between her thighs. Santana opens her mouth soundlessly as her hand moves through the fine hairs, groaning as teeth find her throat and momentarily distract her.

"I don't know what to do," she admits shyly, and Brittany chuckles low, swivelling her hips.

"Anything you do makes me burn," she mumbles, pressing their cheeks together. "Just—oh, gods—trust yourself."

Santana tentatively runs her fingers down the length of her lover and smiles a little as Brittany groans into her ear, hips rolling in an effort to chase her hand. Her clumsy efforts get feedback regardless of their wandering and soon she grows bolder, pressing cautiously at her entrance before teasing back out of reach, kissing away Brittany's frustrated whine. She's so soft, hot and slippery in ways that her imagination could never do justice - Brittany's hips jerk suddenly and it causes her fingers to slide, slipping over a bump, and her lover's entire body goes rigid.

Santana immediately pulls away, but Brittany's hand grasps her wrist and forcefully presses it back, moaning in a way that sends a shudder through Santana's smaller frame. "There," she pants, lifting herself up so that her hands fall behind her, on either side of Santana's hips. "Touch me there."

Santana complies, enraptured by the length of Brittany's body as it stretches out, stomach tense and breasts heaving, each part of her heavily muscled frame twitching and convulsing when she presses her fingers against the spot that makes Brittany bite out a whine around her fist.

Missing the warmth her skin brings, Santana sits up to meet her until Brittany straddles her lap, arms resting heavily against her shoulders. She licks at the skin gone damp with sweat, and when she looks up Brittany's eyes are glazed, seeing into worlds she has yet to know, mouth muttering soundless things that could be curses or prayers alike. Her pale skin flushes such a delicious red that Santana can't help but taste, her teeth anchoring over the smooth arch of her collarbone that makes a heliotrope necklace which betrays exactly who she belongs to. Brittany cries out in a voice not her own, cradling Santana's head close to her neck as her mouth nips and sucks until she imprints herself directly into her flesh.

She's forgotten how intoxicating Brittany's body is, every piece of her making her dizzy with her love that bursts from the now-filled cavity of her chest. The beat of her heart is so foreign that it still takes her by surprise sometimes, swelling as she knows _she_ is the reason Brittany hums her desperation into her hair.

(All the ways she can make these feelings return come to her, flashes of thought that make her face flush.)

Her mouth suckles at the sensitive skin of her ear, slick fingers floating backwards until they rest, pressing at Brittany's entrance. Lips against Brittany's neck ask a wordless question, and she nods, full of fevered wanting that blooms as a blue wind around them both. As Santana ever so slowly sinks her fingers inside she sees the aura shift and shimmer, wrapping and embracing, finally accepting.

Perhaps in another time she would have wanted to go slow, allow Santana to worship every piece of her like she so intends to do, but they have waited so long and her patience is nothing close to endless—Santana already knows her body, has done since the moment that they first touched, and she proves that in every twist of her hand that slides into the deepest reaches of her.

They probably wake the village, but Brittany has no mind to think of anything but the fingers inside her and the mouth on her breast, sucking and licking as Santana's lips—rouged, lacquered with saliva—take away her thoughts until they are blank and clean. Santana knows the hold she has, eyes dark and deep as she peers up through her lashes, and Brittany feels her wild heartbeat against her belly until it pounds through them both as one.

The strange coiling she had felt only once before begins in the pit of her abdomen, winding tight and bruising, forcing her hips down onto Santana's hand with a desperation that comes abruptly. Santana mouths at the clenched hinge of her jaw, writing stories on the spit-slick skin, and her quicksilver tongue licks the thoughts from her as she stops rocking to let Santana finish what she began.

_I love you_, Santana's soundless mouth says, and she responds without words by sucking at her lower lip. Her mind erases what she wishes to say but her actions speak in the way they always do, bleeding her own affection into the kiss that grows sloppy and soft the closer she gets to something building since the moment they first laid eyes on each other—Santana presses the heel of her hand firmly against her nerves and Brittany curls inwards with her back arching like a cat, a shuddering exhale breathed into the crook of Santana's neck. If she had power like her lover the world would splinter apart, but she's content with simply clinging tight as her muscles jump and twitch with no volition.

Santana brushes her damp hair from her eyes as she calms—it's warm against the furs, almost uncomfortably so, and her hands cast a distinctly blue glow about the space from where she sits content with Brittany against her. All returns to its rightful place in the world.

Brittany smile is lazy as she enjoys the stings that Santana's love has bitten into her skin.

"If I knew it felt like that, I would have let it happen ages ago."

Santana chuckles, her chest vibrating with the sound.

"I take it as a compliment."

"You know what else should be a compliment?"

Brittany draws back, and the darkness in her eyes makes Santana gulp.

"W-what?"

All of a sudden she's on her back, limbs tangled with Brittany's, her thumbs making twin bruises on the distinct hollow of her hips.

"That I would want to return the favor so fiercely."

* * *

><p><strong>May 12<strong>**th****, 913**

The almost-summer's sun beats down upon the grasses until they glow, casting mottled shadows where the trees take its light before it reaches the forest floor. Animals chatter and whisper between themselves as they stretch their sluggish limbs and embrace the cool wind that ruffles through their fur, the cloudless blue sky yawning endless and open above them. Sandalio squints into the sun by Brittany's side, her fingers stroking absently against his sun-warmed fur. The mountains cut jagged holes into the horizon and she thinks of sandy plains.

Footsteps approach behind her, but her heart knows far before her ears do. She turns to greet Santana and smiles fondly as her lover grins back, her new robe soft over her shoulders. In the beaming sun her hair burns like the fur of brother bear, coat shiny and slick from the bounty summer brings, and it frames the fullness that has begun to return to her cheeks. Her hand skates across Brittany's back and comes to rest on the curl of her hip, fingers that shake no longer squeezing tenderly at the bone.

"You found your staff," Brittany notes. The ruby has regained the color of their blood and pulses in time to their syncopated heartbeat, but the other baubles have cleared, too, and pass their colorful light upon the side of Santana's face.

"Mami was keeping it for me; she found it in Rome a while ago. Said I'd need it again." Her fingers flex along the wood that has seen as many hardships as her. "It's nice to have it back."

"Has Maria figured out what she wishes to do?"

"Not entirely, no. She thinks she'll stay with the centaurs a while... until the battles quiet in Iberia, at least. She has no desire to become wrapped up in another war."

Her face falls for a moment and Brittany presses a kiss to her warm cheek that flushes at her touch. Color has truly been restored to her skin—the beautiful caramel brown she so fell in love with returning to chase away the gray, but the mental wounds still stay though the physical effects fade away.

But they're healing, together, and it is all Brittany could ask for.

"Have you figured out what you wish to do?" Santana asks tentatively, and any lesser being would miss the hitch in her tone, but Brittany feels the way her fingers flutter around the jut of her hip.

She smiles, sneaky, glancing at her from the corner of her eye.

"I was thinking Iberia... though your mother has a point. Do you have a better plan?"

Santana chews at her lip, caught. It has taken so much coaxing for her to realize she has an equal say as Brittany—she is grateful for her love and devotion, overwhelmed at times, but never indebted.

"Before the Old One was cast away... it showed me something."

Brittany turns to her, intrigued. Santana's smile is coy, more of a smirk, curling in the way she loves. "Mímisbrunnr, high in the mountains."

Fair eyebrows raise, and Brittany turns her entire body to face her, fingers skating thoughtfully along Santana's cheek. "And what would you want with the well of knowledge? Am I to believe that you don't know everything after all?"

Santana chuckles, but she ducks her head, shy. Brittany raises her chin to meet her gaze.

"Tell me, my love. What is it you seek?"

"Eternal life."

Brittany sucks in a hesitant breath, brow furrowing. "Santana..."

"Only with you," she hastens to add, clasping their hands. "I would rather grow old and die with you than live alone forever."

"Who is to say you would be alone?"

"I almost ended the world to keep you alive, Brittany. No one could have my heart as you do."

Brittany looks at Santana in a way so tender it almost steals her words entirely, but Santana forges onwards. "The Old One... it will never disappear. Perhaps it will take a few hundred years, a few thousand, but it will remain. I wish to stop it when it returns."

Brittany blinks, looking out into the valley. "The two of us, protectors of humanity? It seems a heavy title to take on."

"The _three_ of us," Santana corrects gently, rubbing at Sandalio's ears. "And I think _protectors of humanity_ is a bit elaborate, even for us. Watchers, perhaps. Guardians." Her smile spreads further. "And... I would be lying if I said the notion of spending eternity with you is a bad one."

Brittany chuckles, bumping their foreheads together. "I could think of worse things."

They study the mountains together, intertwined. In a year the world has changed little but the people within it so much, and it is with a soft heart that Brittany sighs, her breath fanning itself out against Santana's lips.

"You knew I would say yes from the start, didn't you?"

"Perhaps. Ataecina tells me many things."

"Damned priestesses," Brittany mutters without any malice, claiming her lips in a way that seals the unspoken promise between them.

**who can say where the road goes**

**why your heart chose**

**only time**


End file.
